Tag Archives: #NaNoPrep

October 13, 2025 · 6:00 am

#Preptober: some things I learned from Lee French #writing

Every year since 2010, I have participated in the annual challenge of writing a 50,000-word (or more) novel in November. I was a Municipal Liaison for the now defunct organization known as NaNoWriMo for twelve years, but dropped that gig when the folks at NaNo HQ got too full of themselves and lost the concepts the organization was founded on.

I still participated, just not on their website. Before I deleted my account, I took a screenshot of my header, as it showed my accumulated wordcount. During those years I wrote 1,409,399 words. Some years were easier than others, but I always came away with something useful.

Spending the time every day to get a certain number of new words written forces me to become disciplined. It requires me to ignore the inner editor, the little voice that slows my productivity down and squashes my creativity.

For those two reasons alone, I will most likely always be a November Writer.

I love the rush, the thrill of having laid down the first draft of something that could become better with time and revisions. I am competing against my lazy self and really making the effort to get a complete story arc on paper.

Have I ever mentioned how my family loves Indy Car and the Memorial Day Weekend extravaganza known as the Indy 500? Well, if I haven’t, it’s true.

Jasperson clan at Indy 2012.

I have had many favorite drivers, one of whom is Takuma Sato . You may ask how an Indy Car driver is relevant to my completion of November’s writing rumble, and I will tell you.

He approaches competing like a samurai warrior, and that is how I see making a daily wordcount goal in November. No Attack, No Chance: The Takuma Sato Story – THOR Industries

As Takuma Sato says, “No attack, no chance.”

To really commit to this and get your word count, you must become a Word Warrior. Even if you intend to wing it, a little advance prep is helpful.

Author Lee French, who was my co-ML and dear friend for all those years had a pep-talk she would give our writers, beginning in October, or Preptober as we veterans call it. She has kindly allowed me to quote her notes from 2020:

Pick any of these things you want to write about or with. Be as specific as possible for each thing. These things can come from a number of different categories, such as but not limited to:

Creatures – Dragons, demons, fae, vampires, elves, aliens, babies, wolves, mosquitoes, and so on. This includes anything nonhuman, and may refer to heroes, villains, or side characters of any importance.
Natural disasters – Tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, melting polar ice caps, climate change effects, etc. This can mean a story that takes place during or after a disaster, or it can mean there’s a disaster looming and the goal is to prevent or mitigate it.
Themes – Love, death, survival, good vs. evil, prejudice, etc. Any theme will do. You can mix two, but should steer clear of more than that. If you’re not sure what constitutes a theme, google “story themes” for an array of options.
Relationships – Siblings, romance, platonic love, friendship, breaking up/divorce, etc.
Moods – Grim, utopian, dark, gritty, light, noble bright, comedic, etc.
Geography/type of area – Forest, mountains, urban, rural, caves, isolated, etc.
Phenomena – Magic, psychic powers, supernatural whatnot, miracles, and the like.

Once you have your list, take the time to think about it. Sit back, ruminate on each thing, and make some notes. This could take a few days, or as little as an afternoon. In 2020,

Lee’s five things looked like this:

Magic

Secondary world fantasy.

Other races exist.

The MC uses magic in a lowkey way.

Magic is not commonly used by ordinary people.

There’s a squirrel.

Romance

Cishet. Female MC, male Love Interest.

The guy is different in some important way, like being nonhuman or following a religious path that’s frowned upon by most folk.

The romance is a value-added bonus, not the plot.

Unexpected Ice Age

Caused by magic.

Affects the entire world.

Makes survival challenging, especially for food and fuel.

The cold is enough to kill fairly swiftly.

Good vs. Evil

Bad guy is the leader of the city.

No, wait. It’s two bad guys. They’re partners. Siblings?

Good guy is in hiding.

I think I need a secondary bad guy too, like a lieutenant.

Refuge City of Debris

Jagged edges, abrupt changes in material, faded colors.

The population is in the 2-5 thousand range.

Surrounded by a wall or cliffs. Or both!

I have always loved the way her mind works.

For me, once I begin writing my new manuscript on November 1^st, the hardest part is NOT SELF-EDITING!!! But overcoming that habit is crucial, and not just for wordcount. We need to get the ideas down while they are fresh, and any step backwards can stall the project.

Tips from me for a good November:

Never delete and don’t self-edit as you go. Don’t waste time re-reading your work. You can do all that in December when you go back to look at what you have written.

Make a list of all the names and words you invent as you go and update it each time you create a new one, so the spellings don’t evolve as the story does.

If wordcount is your goal, write 1670 words every day and you will have 50,000 words on November 30^th.

This year for me, wordcount is important but not the entire enchilada. Writing the second book in my unfinished duology is the project that I intend to complete.

Here are some Resources to Bookmark in advance:

Three websites a beginner should go to if they want instant answers in plain English:

Most importantly, enjoy this experience of writing. There is no other reason to put yourself through this.

Credits and Attributions:

Special thanks to best-selling author of YA Fantasy and Sci-fi, Lee French, for allowing me to quote her work notes. She is an inspiration to me!

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September 13, 2023 · 6:00 am

#NaNoPrep: Discovering your writing style #amwriting

Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter?’ For me, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I plot, get two paragraphs in, and then find myself winging it, and the plot goes in a new direction. Then I replot and let it fly again.

crows-clip art clicker vector dot com Also, my first drafts are not written linearly. I write what I am inspired to, skipping the spots I have no clue about. I fill in those places later. Even after completing the first draft, things will change structurally with each rewrite.

But what if you aren’t interested in writing a novel? What if you are a poet or your best skill is the short story?

In thirteen years of participating in NaNoWriMo, I have discovered that there is no one way that fits everyone. You’ve had this idea rolling around your head for a while now for something you’d like to read. You wish your favorite author would write it. In my experience, you must write it yourself, or it will never happen.

Your favorite author can only write so fast. Not only that, but what they’re in the mood to write might not be your wished-for book.

I’ve noticed a trend—most authors don’t live beyond 100 years of age. Unfortunately, dead authors rarely publish new books unless they are ghostwriters.

So, there you go–if you want that book, write it yourself.

My addiction to NaNoWriMo began innocently, as all good habits do: A young writer in the Philippines whom I had met through a gaming website mentioned he planned to do this writing challenge. I had never heard of it.

November’s Goal

It was a worldwide thing where hundreds of thousands of people began writing a novel on November 1, intending to have it finished by November 30. The catch was that you couldn’t start until 12:01 a.m. on November 1st; it had to be at least 50,000 words long, but it could be longer. And you had to have it validated by 11:59 p.m. on November 30th to earn the coveted winners’ goodies.

I wasn’t sure I could do this crazy thing. All I had to do was write 1,667 words daily, which I felt I could do. I figured the worst that could happen was that I would fail to have anything to write about.

Fear of failure had never stopped me from ruining my life, so I googled the national website and signed up. I chose the handle dragon_fangirl.

At 6:30 a.m. on November 1, 2010, I looked at my laptop and had no idea what to do. I wrote the first line as if I were telling myself a fairy tale. Inspired by my misspent childhood reading such disparate works as Don Quixote and the heartily misogynistic adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, I wrote:

There was a cabin in the woods.

Author-thoughts It wasn’t exactly literary brilliance, but it gave my idea a jumping-off point. I just began telling the story as it fell out of my mind. Surprisingly, I discovered my word count averaged 2,500 to 3,000 words daily. By day fifteen, I knew I would have no trouble getting to 50,000, and by November 21^st, I had passed the 50,000-word mark.

At the 68,000-word point, I had completed my rollicking tale of snark and medieval derring-do. It was utterly unpublishable (say that hokey phrase three times!), but I didn’t know that until later.

What I did know was that I had written a complete novel and told the kind of tale I would have sought out at the bookstore.

All it needed was rewriting, editing, revising, rewriting, and putting it in a drawer, never to be seen again.

Julian_Lackland Cover 2019 for Bowkers But I took that incoherent mess apart, and over the next ten years, it became three books: Huw the Bard, Billy Ninefingers, and Julian Lackland.

One rule they tell you at NaNoWriMo is never to delete and don’t self-edit as you go along. This is all strictly stream-of-consciousness, so write how it falls out of your head. That was hard for me, but eventually, I got into the swing of things.

My rules for NaNoWriMo:

Write at least 1,670 words every day. Technically, it’s three more words than the pros suggest, but it gives me a little cushion and takes about 2 hours. I’m not fast at this.
Write daily whether you have an idea worth writing about or not. Write that grocery list if you have nothing else. When stuck, I work on my characters’ personnel files, visualizing them as people I might want to know. Every word counts toward your ultimate goal. We will talk about my approach to writer’s block next week.
It helps to check in on the national threads each day. Look at your regional threads on the national website to keep in contact with other local writers. You will find out when and where write-ins are scheduled.
Be brave! Attend an in-person write-in or join a virtual write-in at NaNoWriMo on Facebook. The company of other writers keeps you enthused about your project.
Try NOT to self-edit as you go. Just get that story down from beginning to end.
Delete nothing. Passages you want to delete later can be highlighted, and the font turned to red or blue so you can easily separate them later.
Remember, not every story is a novel. If your story ends, draw a line at the bottom of the page and start a new one in the same manuscript. You can always separate them later; that way, you won’t lose track of your total word count.
Update your word count every day. It’s an honor system, but you get little badges for updating every day and achieving specific goals. One badge is for updating your word count more than once in one day. I try to earn all the badges, and most years I do.

In 2015, I took a different path from the usual novel-in-thirty-days approach. I named my project November Tales. I suffered from a bout of pneumonia and worked from my bed for most of the month. Even so, I managed 42 short stories, all fueled by Nyquil and desperation, totaling 107,000 words.

Bleakbourne front Cover medallion and dragon copy Included in this mess were ten dreadful poems, along with chapters 7 through 11 of Bleakbourne on Heath.

The following year began the same, this time with a severe case of bronchitis. I named my project November Tales 2016 – 30 Days of Madness and Pot Pies. I started by writing short stories, flash fiction, drabbles, and poems. Within five days, I was writing the first draft of a novel and managed to get 90,000 wonky, misspelled words.

That novel is still in the first draft stage, but I intend to finish it in this year’s NaNo rumble.

If you choose to join this writing free-for-all, go to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up! Pick your name, start your author profile, and look up dragon_fangirl (that’s me). Add me as your writing buddy, and I will be part of your writing posse, cheering you on when you need a morale boost.

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September 11, 2023 · 6:00 am

What is National Novel Writing Month, and should I participate? #NaNoWriMo

September is in full swing, and with it comes writers’ conferences. This last weekend, I attended the Southwest Washington Writers’ Conference in Centralia, Washington. I sat in on presentations by Lindsay Schopfer, Mellissa Hart, Elizabeth Goddard, and many other writers, all discussing the craft of writing. I also gave a small presentation on adding depth to our heroes and villains.

2020_nano_Project_cover Conferences are excellent places to make good connections with other writers. You meet people you can talk to about every aspect of the experience of writing as well as craft. No one’s eyes glaze over when you try to explain your main character’s inner demons and you find people with struggles similar to your own.

You also meet industry professionals who will help you on your road to a finished project.

I have another conference in two weeks, this one in Seattle. After PNWA’s 2023 conference, I will plow through my notes for new info, as conferences always give me plenty of fodder for several blog posts.

September is also the time of year when I begin pulling together the characters and plot of my next novel. I’m a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

If you haven’t heard of this, it’s a worldwide event taking place in November. Each year, thousands of people in all parts of the world dedicate themselves to writing a 50,000-word narrative in only thirty days.

NaNoWriMo is a contest in that you have achieved your goal if you write 50,000 words and have your word count validated through the national website. But it is not a contest in any other way as there are no monetary prizes or fame for those winners, only a PDF winner’s certificate that you can fill out and print to hang on your wall.

Depending on your intended audience, a manuscript of only 50,000 words is a short novel. It’s a good length for YA or romance but is only half a novel for epic fantasy or literary fiction.

November’s Goal

Regardless of the planned length of their finished novel, a dedicated author can get a book’s basic structure and storyline down in those thirty days. They sit for an hour or two each day and write at least 1667 words.

That’s all you need to do. At the end of 30 days, you will have written 50,000 words.

Author Lee French and I are co-MLs for the Olympia Region for NaNoWriMo. Every year, many writers in our area create profiles at www.nanowrimo.org and embark on the writer’s journey. Lee and I work together to ensure they have all the necessary tools and support to achieve their goals.

We’ve been doing this for a while and have seen a pattern among our writers. The first roadblock happens when reality sets in, and the writers realize that writing is work. This usually occurs within the first few days. A small percentage will never get more than 2,000 words written.

They discover writing isn’t their jam, after all.

The majority of new NaNo writers are people who “always wanted to write a book.” Often, they don’t know what they want to write and have no clue how to be disciplined enough to write any words, much less the number it takes to make a novel.

They start, get 30 to 1,000 words in, and realize they have nothing to say. But in our region, many people will reach the 10,000-word mark before they stop writing. That’s an achievement—it’s almost a novella.

NANO Crest Some new writers are completely fired up for their novels, obsessed. They go at it full tilt for a week or even two, and then, at the 20,000-word mark, they take a day off. Somehow, they never get back to it. These writers will continue to write off and on and may participate in NaNoWriMo again.

Even seasoned writers who have crossed the finish line at NaNoWriMo in previous years may find that the commitment to sit and write 1,667 words daily is not doable. Things come up—life happens, and it’s okay to set the writing aside. You can always come back to it later.

But by November 30^th, a third of the writers in our region will make it to the 50,000-word mark. Some will reach above 80,000, and a few will exceed 100,000.

Some of these novels have complete story arcs and are ready for revisions. Most are not, but more work could make these proto-novels publishable.

It takes commitment and discipline to write 1,667 new words every day. You are not revising old work. Instead, you’re writing something new and not looking at what you wrote yesterday.

To do this, you must sit at the keyboard, open the document to where you left off, and begin writing forward. I have some tips and tricks to simplify this process, and we will discuss them later.

I’m not a good typist. The words that fall out of my head during NaNoWriMo are not all golden, just so you know. When writing stream-of-consciousness, many words will be garbled and miss-keyed.

This means that the revision process is a long and winding road for me.

I began writing Ruins of Abeyon, my forthcoming novel in November 2017, on the spur of the moment when I had a sudden flash of “what if.” I started with no outline, so the story arc evolved as I wrote the book. I listed the events in a separate document as I went. Later, when revising, it was easy to see the arc and make an outline. I could see when it was best to move certain events to more logical places and even when things needed to be cut.

Still, it has taken five years to get this book to where it is ready to be published.

Succeeding in writing even a short story gives one the confidence to continue.

If you have a novel in your soul and it’s bursting to get out, this might be your chance. However, planning for a successful NaNoWriMo is like preparing for a marathon.

We let our families know what we are planning well in advance and share how vital reaching our goal is to us. That way, we have their emotional support. We also plan ahead for meals and family time so the essential people in our lives aren’t neglected. In the US, this means fixing a Thanksgiving dinner on the last Thursday of November and enjoying the things that matter most.

Pumpkin-Pie-Whole-Slice Cooking is my love language. I have many tips and ideas for getting word count and having a proper family feast. As a dedicated writer, I know how to plan for all aspects of life.

In many ways, we’re physically and mentally preparing for a marathon. We build our strength and get our families behind us by ensuring we have prepared well in advance.

Over the next few weeks, we will focus on laying the groundwork for our novels so that we will be ready and able to write when November comes.

Much of what I will discuss has emerged from my 13 years of experience and my co-ML Lee’s ideas for prep work.

I have made life-long friends through participating in my local NaNoWriMo group. The emphasis is on having fun and meeting personal goals, commiserating when goals can’t be met, and just enjoying the experience of creating something that is ours. We have the support and encouragement of the worldwide community of writers and people of all nations and walks of life.

Everyone has a story. Some people will write those stories, and I will be first in line at the eBook store, eager to read them.

NaNoWriMo-General-Flyer

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October 4, 2021 · 6:00 am

#NaNoPrep, The Story Arc part 1 #amwriting

Today’s post begins a three-part series on the story arc. At this point, I’ve been talking about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, for several weeks. It begins on November 1^st, and to sign up, go to www.nanowrimo.org .

WritingCraft_NaNoPrep_Novel_in_a_month We know our genre and have written a few paragraphs that describe our characters and who they are the day before the story opens. Also, we know where the story takes place. (To catch up on earlier posts, the list is at the bottom of this article.)

I always feel it’s necessary to have a brief outline of the story arc when I sit down to write. “Pantsing it” is exhilarating, but my years of experience with NaNoWriMo have taught me that when I am winging it for extended lengths of time, I lose track of the plot and go off the rails.

Not having even a loose outline creates a lot more work in the long run. It stalls the momentum if I must stop writing, take the time to analyze where I’m at, and then throw together an outline for the next section. Stopping the flow lowers my NaNoWriMo word count for that day.

For those who are new to writing and are just learning the ropes, turning your idea about a book you’d like to write into a manuscript you would want to read takes a little work.

First, you need to know how to construct a story.

magic Every reader knows that stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They start in a place of relative comfort, and through rising action, they follow the characters through events that change them for better or worse.

However, when a new writer sits down to write a novel in only thirty days with no plan and no idea what they’re going to write, they can easily lose interest and stop writing altogether. Others might force themselves to get their 50,000 words, but have no control of character arcs, setting, or plot. They end up with backstory infodumps and side quests to nowhere. The ending either slowly faints away or is chopped off.

All the infodumps and history can be gotten out of the way before you begin the opening paragraphs on November 1st.

The progression of events from an opening line to a final paragraph is called a story arc. It is called an arc because the action begins at a quiet point, rises to a pitch, and ends at another quiet point.

So, let’s consider the beginning. Now is a good time to write a line or two describing the opening scene, simple prompts for when the real work begins.

Beginnings are the most critical and are easiest to mess up with too much information. All beginnings are comprised of situation, circumstances, and objectives.

A good story opens with the main character and introduces their companions (if any). (Circumstances)
The antagonist and their cohorts are introduced. (Circumstances)
With the introductions out of the way, something occurs that pushes the main character out of their comfort zone. (Situation and Circumstances)
That event is called the “inciting incident” and is named that because this occurrence incites all the action that follows. (Objectives)
These scenes comprise the first ¼ of the story arc. The beginning ends with the first major incident, where the action kicks into high gear, transitioning to the middle section of the story. (Situation, Circumstances, and Objectives)

strange thoughts 2 In your musings, on what day does the serious event occur, the one that changes everything? THAT day is where the story begins, and everything that happens before that moment is backstory and isn’t necessary. A plot outline I have used before as an example is set as a political thriller, but it could easily be a paranormal fantasy, a sci-fi thriller, or a romance.

At the outset of the story, we find our protagonist and see him/her in their normal surroundings. Once we have met them and seen them in their comfort zone, an event occurs which is the inciting incident. This is the first point of no return.

At the outset, Dave, an unmarried accountant, sees a woman from across a café, and through a series of innocent actions on his part, he is caught up in a spy ring. We begin with the protagonist.

What could possibly entice Dave out of his comfort zone? What would he spontaneously do that is out of character for him? Perhaps he buys a stranger lunch. This act must change his life.

Because Dave paid for a stranger’s meal, he draws the attention of the people who are following her. They think he must be involved with her, putting him at risk.

That was the inciting incident, the moment that changed everything.

Now, Dave is thrown out of his comfort zone and into the situation, which is the core of the plot.

On his way back to his office, a white limousine pulls up alongside him, and four men in black suits hustle him into the backseat. He is forced at gunpoint onto a plane bound for a foreign nation, handcuffed to a suitcase. The only other key that can remove the handcuffs is at the Embassy in the custody of a mysterious woman.

This is the circumstance in which Dave finds himself at the beginning of the story.

How will the next phase of Dave’s story start? That will begin the middle section of the story.

Now we come to the next part of the core of your plot: objective.

At this point, our hero just wants to get rid of the suitcase and go back to his job. He wants that desperately. Desire drives the story.

Everything that occurs from here until the final page happens because Dave has an objective: he wants to go home.

However, to counter the enemy, we must decide how to get Dave and his story to the next plot point, which we’ll discuss in the next post.

Those paragraphs are all that is needed as far as an outline for the beginning goes, unless you’re in the mood to go deeper. All we need is an idea of who, what, and where. We’ll discuss how to plot the middle, or the why, in the next post.

WordItOut-word-cloud-4074543 If you work at a day job and using the note-taking app on your cellphone to take notes during work hours is frowned on, you can still capture your ideas for the storyboard.

Carry a pocket-sized notebook and pencil and write those ideas down. You can discreetly make notes whenever you have an idea that would work well in your story, and you won’t be noticeably distracted or off-task.

Part 2 of this topic will talk about action and reaction, plotting the middle of the story arc.