Patricia Stoltey

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A NaNo No No (and some other stuff)

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It’s not really the second week doldrums that slowed down my progress on NaNoWriMo word count. I had two days of other work to do, and that break was on my original schedule. That’s okay.

The No No, however, is that I’ve stopped to figure out where the heck I am in the story, make a cast of characters list so I can remember their names instead of constantly typing XXX. And I need a rough timeline because at this point, I have no idea what day it is or how many days have passed.

My NaNo project would have been a lot easier if I’d written these names down as soon as the character showed up, and written the Day One, Day Two info down as the story progressed. At this point, I don’t know if I’ll make that 50,000 word total or not. I still plan to give it my best shot.

Helpful NaNoWriMo Tips from the RMFW Blog

Two of our RMFW Blog contributors posted helpful tips for NaNo participants on last week’s blog. Please check out Jeffe Kennedy’s “Easy Steps to Polish that Draft” and  “Pushing Through the Middle: Tips for the NaNoWriMo Crowd and Other First Drafters” by Lori DeBoer.

Registration is now open for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Retreat

Last week I posted about the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Retreat scheduled for March 16-21 in Golden, Colorado. My post is HERE.

Registration is now open to the first 30 people to sign up. You do not have to be a member of RMFW, so if this awesome opportunity sounds like something you’d like to do, head on over to the RMFW website to REGISTER.

Remember, there are only 30 spaces available. You don’t want to end up on a waiting list now, do you? Of course not!

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Comments

  1. Once the cast grows to a certain level, it can get tricky trying to keep them straight. In theory, it’s good to just put in placeholders and not stop with the writing. Unfortunately, it makes the writing feel fake to me, and I have a hard time getting into it if I don’t have at least a name.

  2. I’ve never started a story without knowing all the major character’s names(and most of the minor ones). Maybe I’ll try diving in without them next time just to see how it works.

  3. I did spend a good amount of time over the weekend taking notes on my characters and trying to figure out Day One, Day Two, etc.

    I feel more confident about moving forward now, but am not sure I’ll be able to do the 2350 words per day I’d need to reach 50,000 at the end of the month. Guess I’ll just write whenever I can and see what happens.

  4. I did NaNo last year, and I admit that it’s easy to get confused during the crazy month. Don’t worry too much about character names. If you don’t have a name, or if you’d forgotten someone’s name, you can just toss a blanket description of the character in there, and return to this later on when you revise…after November.

  5. Yeah, I should definitely know better, but I had to stop at various points and make lists of various classes my character attended, and which minor character she shared those classes with. It was getting way too messy without doing so.

  6. At least NaNo got me started….and I’ll continue pantsing it once I have my ducks in a row. I’d rather have the start of a draft I can actually work with than have 50,000 useless words at the end of the month.

  7. I participated in a writing sprint yesterday and about halfway through realized I was boring myself to death (yes, the horrible middle). I decided instead of pantsing it, although not bad for getting words down, I need to work at fleshing out the idea a bit more then try again. Live n’ learn…or in this case, write n’ learn.

  8. I love that phrase ‘nano no no’! I might have to say it all day long. Only because I’m not doing a NaNo this year – probably I’ll be ready to take part in the BuNoWriMo in June – not sure. My nano no no was carrying on WHEN I should have stopped like you to see what the heck was going on. That was a number of years ago and I’m still trying to unravel that plot. One I did last year in June is perfectly good but it didn’t have such a complicated plot so … Good luck and don’t give a fig whether you do 50 thou or not – you’re writing and that is the best thing of all!

  9. Hey, I just put a blank when I don’t know the character’s name, and that’s usually about half of them. Makes it a lot of fun when I go back later and fill in the blanks…