Last Nanowritmo was a disaster. And it was my first one, so I was loath to start again this year without a battle plan. Last time, my inner editor beat me to a bloody, circling pulp, sending me into a never-ending editing spiral that ended in a word-addled panic attack.
So this year I came up with a plan. The novel I intended to write, I had been mulling over in my head all summer, but hadn’t written any actual words on yet. I knew my characters, knew roughly where it started, who dun it (cozy mystery) and setting. I knew that I needed to muffle that inner editor, but how?
That’s when I did a search for using Scrivener better-because it’s such a powerful writing source for some and I knew I really wasn’t using it well.
This was my plan: I started a new Scrivener project, using a mystery novel template, then I pretty much followed Jason Hough's 'Scrivener Bootcamp' and following Nanowordsprints very closely. They have been a lifesaver!
This meant always moving forward with my writing. I haven't done more than a few minor word changes since I've started.
Here's what I mean:
(Any running commentary from my editor-is either prefaced by /// or the letters TK which I write as or the case of a new character that I don't want to take the time to flesh out now- 'Officer TK' with a comment added to the side.
Like this:
This literally takes seconds and when I finish the word vomit that is my initial draft, I'll go find all of the 'TK's and fix them.
Is this my best writing? No.
Is this utter crap? Hell no.
But I am so proud of myself for getting almost halfway through my 50,000 word count. I'm not even worried about the ending yet because a typical cozy is 90,000 to 100,000 words anyway-so I'm aiming for progress to middle.
It is me telling myself the story the first time. The polishing and fluffing out will come after.
No comments:
Post a Comment