Today marks the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo.
I’m going to be honest, I tried to participate during last year’s April session with a goal of 30,000 words and failed miserably. I think I hit 7,000 before giving up a week into the month and, to this day, that is the most I’ve written on a single writing project. This year I am going to change that. I’ve set myself a modest goal of 10k and I intend to hit it while writing the most on a single story I have ever written. I also did a lot of planning, the nature of which I am going to share with you today!
I’m going to be honest, I tried to participate during last year’s April session with a goal of 30,000 words and failed miserably. I think I hit 7,000 before giving up a week into the month and, to this day, that is the most I’ve written on a single writing project. This year I am going to change that. I’ve set myself a modest goal of 10k and I intend to hit it while writing the most on a single story I have ever written. I also did a lot of planning, the nature of which I am going to share with you today!
1) Get inspired
In order to get inspired and motivated for Camp NaNoWriMo, I took to youtube and my first stop was Katytastic’s NaNoWriMo vlogs. Kat is one of my favorite booktubers, but she’s also a writer who has participated in NaNoWriMo year after year. She has vlogs of almost every year she’s participated where she shares tips and is overall very inspiring.
In order to get inspired and motivated for Camp NaNoWriMo, I took to youtube and my first stop was Katytastic’s NaNoWriMo vlogs. Kat is one of my favorite booktubers, but she’s also a writer who has participated in NaNoWriMo year after year. She has vlogs of almost every year she’s participated where she shares tips and is overall very inspiring.
2) Gain some knowledge
As I started to brainstorm and decide what my plot would look like, I started researching the writing processes of some of my favorite writers. Two resources I found super helpful were Marissa Meyer’s 9 Steps from Idea to Finished and Maggie Stiefvater's short story introduction that talks about her writing process.
3) Create a few characters
After I developed my idea with the help of my favorite authors, I developed some characters. I started with some character development questions and figured out the basics. After that, I created some spiffy Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists, all of which helped me develop my characters and get to know them a little better. Another helpful resource I found for when I was struggling with characters was the Writing Excuses Podcast episode about three pronged character development.
4) Write an outline
I used two resources to help me outline my novel. The first was the Snowflake Method. This method starts out utilizing the basic ideas you have about your novel and expands on them until you have something more complex. This worked great for me because I didn’t know that much about my story before I started outlining. After I used that method, I went back to Katytastic’s videos and used her outlining method to create a chapter by chapter guide to my novel.
As I started to brainstorm and decide what my plot would look like, I started researching the writing processes of some of my favorite writers. Two resources I found super helpful were Marissa Meyer’s 9 Steps from Idea to Finished and Maggie Stiefvater's short story introduction that talks about her writing process.
3) Create a few characters
After I developed my idea with the help of my favorite authors, I developed some characters. I started with some character development questions and figured out the basics. After that, I created some spiffy Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists, all of which helped me develop my characters and get to know them a little better. Another helpful resource I found for when I was struggling with characters was the Writing Excuses Podcast episode about three pronged character development.
4) Write an outline
I used two resources to help me outline my novel. The first was the Snowflake Method. This method starts out utilizing the basic ideas you have about your novel and expands on them until you have something more complex. This worked great for me because I didn’t know that much about my story before I started outlining. After I used that method, I went back to Katytastic’s videos and used her outlining method to create a chapter by chapter guide to my novel.
5) Summarize that sucker
If you’re anything like me, you have trouble transforming your giant outline into a short summary to use on Camp NaNoWriMo’s novel information page. I stumbled across this excellent blog post that made the process so much easier.
Those are a few of the resources I’ve found and used during the last month in order to plan for Camp NaNoWriMo. To everyone who is participating this month: I wish you good luck.
Happy Noveling!
If you’re anything like me, you have trouble transforming your giant outline into a short summary to use on Camp NaNoWriMo’s novel information page. I stumbled across this excellent blog post that made the process so much easier.
Those are a few of the resources I’ve found and used during the last month in order to plan for Camp NaNoWriMo. To everyone who is participating this month: I wish you good luck.
Happy Noveling!