It’s that time of year again!
Well, it’s October and some of you might know what that means!
Every October I plan my next NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) novel. I really feel like a huge part of my life revolves around these two months. October for planning and November for trying my hardest to write every day.
To be fair, I have done it for 12 years straight and ‘won’ every time - I used to wonder how I managed it until I realised that I have a tendency to hyper-fixate on things which really explains a lot. I have never struggled with commitment because once I’m in, I’m in. My brain will wrap its grubby little mitts around whatever I want it to, and hold on for dear life… that’s how I accumulate so many extra-curriculars!
More on that another day, though.
Last week I jotted down my new story idea - something I’m really excited to jump into. This year I’m writing a mystery and I’m leaning towards the dark-academia vibe which I have never done before but I’m excited to try.
I tend to stick to YA with my NaNo novels, because young adult fiction is my first love… however, this story came to me and there is no way to tell the story in that genre.
So far I have the synopsis, the characters, the setting, and the theme. Next up in my planning game I need to start preliminary fleshing-out of the thing so I’ll be delving into writing a short summary for the beginning, the middle, and the end just to try to nail it all before I start my beat sheet next week.
Planning really does help keep everything going smoothy through November, especially when there is a tendency to hit a mid-month slump. I also really love writing all the ideas out and the story points because I want to tell myself the story before I start for real. I have to be able to imagine it; every scene, every rainy day, every facial expression and emotion that passes through the characters…
I’m just incredibly excited to give this story a whirl.
If you made it this far into the blog post you get to click through to my project page to see more details on the book: https://nanowrimo.org/participants/sam-cummings/projects/the-moon-is-a-door
And if you are participating, don’t forget to add me as a friend!
Speak soon,
Sam
