Category: novel planning
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Friday’s Findings: Fictionary
I bit the bullet and purchased a subscription to Fictionary. Being a word-processing program and outliner for authors, it falls into the same category as Scrivener, but they have some differences. Here’s how I feel about Fictionary: Character tracking: Fictionary has a great feature for keeping track of characters in each scene. Character tracking is…
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Friday’s Findings: The Story on Two Levels
I believe I’ve quoted this fiction writing axiom before, but Terry Pratchett said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” With this year’s NaNoWriMo, I’m finding out how true this is. I’m feeling exactly what he was talking about. I spent September and October prepping my story. I made up characters. I…
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NaNo Update
Just a quick update on my NaNoWriMo project. Over the weekend I reached 30k words, which was my goal. I’m pleased with how it’s going, but, of course, NaNo is about just getting it down on paper (or on the computer). Some things going well: I’ve written something for every scene in the story. Sometimes…
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Friday’s Findings
I’m trying something new this year for NaNoWriMo. I’m jumping around. Not up and down in my chair, but around the manuscript. Usually, I write in a linear fashion. I start at the beginning and write the scenes in order. This year I’ve decided to skip around my WIP. Why am I trying this? The…
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This Year: Why My NaNoWriMo Is Going So … Great
Nanowrimo first week update: Taking a short break from writing my NaNoWriMo project for an update and access how I’m feeling. Overall, I feel like this year’s NaNo is going fantastic. I would have to say it’s the best NaNo experience I’ve had, and I’ve been doing it since 2008. Why is it going so…
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Friday’s Findings
My first week of NaNoWriMo 2021 has gone fantastic. It’s day four and I’m already past 10,000 words. I’ve had some years of NaNo in which I just wasn’t into it, but this year I’m on fire. I think it’s because I did some planning. I created an outline with a summary of scenes, and…
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NaNoWriMo: I’m Not Going to Kick Myself If I Don’t
During November, I need to work my regular job. So how am I going to get NaNoWriMo done? I also need to exercise. I also need to keep my house clean. I also need to run errands. And so on… Judging from my experience in past NaNoWriMos, keeping up with my word count seemed to…
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Friday’s Findings
I’m reading James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers. I’m not even finished, but I’ve already collected a bunch of writing tips and exercises to apply to my own WIPs. Here’s one–and it’s useful for the upcoming NaNoWriMo: “Say you want to describe someone’s wild hair. Write for five minutes without stopping. Describe…
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Friday’s Findings
From last Monday: I’m on “staycation” this week. As far as my writing, here are some things I promise myself to do with my extra time this week: For NaNoWriMo next month, I promise to do practice writing sprints every day. I will work on my current WIPs. Also for NaNo, I will further develop…
Andrew M. Friday 