Tag Archives: nanowrimo

Technique

Nano inspiration: Music

Music is another great way to recapture some of the initial inspiration behind your story. It does more than just soothe the savage beast! (Which is a misquote anyway.)

Music is a great way to get yourself in the mood to write a specific scene. I know, I know, that sounds like I mean you should be listening to “Let’s Get It On” when you’re writing love scenes. That’s not quite what I mean (but if that works for you, great)—or, rather, it’s not just what I mean. There are songs about other things, you know. Sort of.

For a long time, my favorite music for just about anything was classical. Even now, when I need to be creative on demand, I’ll pop in my James Galway (flute) album (Serenade). Sometimes, I have a perfect popular song or soundtrack I listen to on repeat while writing, either because it relates thematically, is directly mentioned in the story, or the beat is just good. A song with a driving beat is a great for a high-tension scene—or for a high-tension writer.

Need music without words? I hear you, and I’ve found something that I love: movie soundtracks. Think of a movie in your genre that you like, and pull up the soundtrack for it. The various songs are already designed to be the backdrop to the different types of scenes you might be writing.

You might already have a good site for listening to music, or maybe you actually spring for your tracks on iTunes or Amazon, but if not, I’ve found Grooveshark is pretty nice for individual songs and playlists. I’m still devoted to Pandora for building a radio station around a song or two (yes even with the ads). Apparently I’m flirting with growing up because I also (gasp) buy tracks off Amazon. I guess iTunes would work, too, but I don’t have an iPod, so . . . no thanks.

So what’s in my playlist? Last year, “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin, the soundtrack to Indiana Jones and Queen headlined. This year, my new songs include:

  • “Adrienne” – The Calling—it’s about betrayal, and my MC’s name is Adrienne. Plus it takes me back to high school, which is where you kinda want to be while writing YA, right?
  • “Redrum” – Ugress feat. Christine Litle—discovered this when making the trailer for my book. Driving beat, evil lyrics. I almost feel like this set the tone for her voice. Also, free download from the band’s website.
  • “Little Talks” – Of Monsters and Men—heard it on the radio (again) 4 days before starting. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Plus some old drafting favorites (Zep, Queen) and anything that seemed appropriate that I already had on my computer.

What songs do you write to?

Photo by Colleen Lane and unknown

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Technique

NaNo “Pinspiration”

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Hooray! It’s day two! I hope you’re going strong. Throughout the rest of the month, we’ll look at a few tools, tips and techniques to keep us going strong, including things we can do in about 20 minutes to help remind us why we started this story, and fall in love with it all over again.

One recommendation I’ve seen several places is to make yourself a collage of images that speak to you about this book. Several people say that you can look at these collages for inspiration when you find your writing lagging. I love seeing these collage posts on friends’ blogs, but today I’m talking about a different way to do this.

Have you heard of Pinterest? It’s a website where you can virtually “pin” (save) any image or video that inspires you. It also shares these pins with your friends and displays them all organized into separate “boards.” It’s pretty fun. I use it a lot for my craft blog, but every once in a while, I use it for writing.

Now, my friends’ collages are a little more abstract, it seems, but this is my interpretation: some images of character inspirations and major plot elements (okay, and at least one character quirk) in my Nano 2011 WIP:

(I edited out the pictures from the previous couple projects, but the pins are still in there if you follow the link.)

You no longer need an invite to sign up! You can also use your Twitter account or Facebook account to register at Pinterest.

Again, this year, I’m trying out Scrivener for Nano. I really love that you can save your research and even character and inspiration photos right in your project file. It’s also a plus for me that this is private, where Pinterest doesn’t offer private pinboards. However, I also like Pinterest’s one-click capability to add any picture to my boards. So we’ll see what I end up using long term.

How do you make collages for your WIPs? Or do you?

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Technique

NaNo inspiration: covers

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Happy Halloween! Let’s keep counting down to Nano with some more sources of inspiration!

Once upon a time, I was anti-mock covers. I thought it was a little weird to put up a fake book cover on your site for a book you’re drafting or trying to sell. Then I wrote up my projects page, and it looked . . . bare. So I made up some passable mock covers (some obviously more time consuming than others).

Usually, I’ve waited until I was done or nearly so to make these. But since October is a “planning” month for NaNo, and I was only doing 50,000 other things, I spent a day (or four) making the “ideal” version of the cover. Here’s last year’s:

Not 100% perfect (or, you know, licensed), but pretty dang good. Just looking at it gets me excited to write!

Obviously you don’t want to take off a day in the middle of NaNo to play around with a graphics program to make a cover no one else might ever see—but in about 20 minutes, you can throw together something that can inspire you.

Seriously, I tried it. I used a picture I pinned of one character, and Googled screencaps from a movie the other character was in (screencaps found here). Then I turned to Flickr for pictures of a rune stone (by Paul W. Locke). Some Magic Wand tool, cut/paste, resize, color balance, and add text, and voila! I put together a crude version of the above.

Inspiration in twenty minutes? That’s a bargain.

I’ll share the cover for this year’s Nano novel in December!

How do you find inspiration quickly?

Photo credits: Maggie Lawson by unknown (via listal), Garrett Hedlund from TRON: Legacy (found here), Viking coin by Ancient Art, Kensington runestone monument by Paul W. Locke

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Technique

Nano organization: Evernote

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The Internet is a fabulous thing. I do a lot of my research for my books on the Internet, from looking at historical sources to contemporary locations to costumes to fact checking and even some plot ideas. I used bookmarks for years to try to keep track of these disparate sources, but frankly it was too hard to find what I needed in my notes, especially when I only had one or two sentences that I really needed from a long article.

And then I found Evernote. It’s a website where you can store all kinds of information: pictures, text, whole websites. It can also “clip” these notes from your desktop, or, via a smartphone app, your photos, etc. You can not only tag the notes you add, but also group your “notes” by topics, separated into “notebooks.” Probably the best part is that you can search your notes to find just what you’re looking for I *think* there are other good programs that can do this, but this is the only one I’d used until this year, and I like it.

So what’s this got to do with NaNo? When you’re writing as fast as you can, and you need to stop to look something up, or to find something you know you looked up when you were plotting on or around October 23, or to remember that one really cool idea you had from that weird news article that would be perfect right here, instead of trying to dig through your bookmarks or search your web history, you just go to your account, and either search your notes, or look through the notebook for this book, and you’re set!

This year, I’m trying out Scrivener for Nano, and I really love that you can save your research right in your project file. However, I also like Evernote’s capability to highlight a picture, paragraph or phrase on any website (or from my phone!) and save it in your notebook with a single click. So we’ll see what I end up using long term.

I also like this because I’ve used it to save research on ideas I might write later—much later. Like for NaNo 2011, I wrote an idea that I’d been thinking about for probably two years. Some of my notes on the pseudohistory I unapologetically used were clipped in July 2010. As I was gearing up to actually write the book, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to remember a lot of the things I’d need, until I saw the name of the notebook on Evernote. Voila! Lots of cool facts that I wouldn’t have to hunt down again!

How do you keep track of your research so you can find it when you need it?

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Technique

Getting your family on board for NaNoWriMo

It’s no coincidence NaNoWriMo is associated with utter insanity. For most of us, we have to let something go to get in those hundreds of words per day. And most of us don’t live alone. For NaNo to be a success, it’s best to get your family on board. My friend Danyelle Ferguson has some great tips on preparing your family for NaNoWriMo.

flying fingersIf you haven’t sat down with your significant other, or someone else who might be expecting more from you than you’ll be able to give this next month, do it today! Reasonable expectations really help in relationships, even when we’re doing something that might seem just a little unreasonable—like writing a novel in a month.

My favorite ideas are to plan meals in advance (have I mentioned that once or twice?) and (I’m sure my kids’ favorite!) set up rewards for word count goals—and while we all love incentive chocolate, even better in a month of insane writing is a reward that gets you away from the keyboard and spending time with your family, as Danyelle suggests. Go read her post for more great tips on arranging your schedule and getting your family’s support for you NaNo push!

Photo credit: The Hamster Factor

Originally from Nano 2011

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Technique

Reaching your Nano goals on autopilot

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This entry is part 13 of 16 in the series NaNoWriMo success and inspiration

I set goals all the time—and I’ve found the easiest way to achieve my goals is on autopilot.

That doesn’t mean coasting through the month, or setting absurdly low goals so I can achieve them, though. Like I mentioned yesterday, that means scheduling for me. I kind of beasted Nano 2011, and—especially the first week—I managed to do this without the world falling down around the ears. I’m the mom, of course, and I set the pace of the household. I do most of the housework. So how did I write 5000-6000 words a day (hours and hours of work) without running out of meals and clean underwear for the family?

Planning.

I was already used to one very useful phone alarm: a 15 minute warning to the time we need leave for school. So I decided to expand on that and use the phone alarm to remind me to do laundry (and switch it, fold it, and hand it off to the kids to put away), work with the kids to empty the dishwasher, read with the kids, start dinner and go to bed on time.

Dinners were also planned: I took the calendar for the month and planned out our meals (actually, when I did this for 2012, I planned for the rest of the year because I found so many great recipes—you can see the online ones on my Pinterest). Last year, I focused on quick meals, slow cooker meals, meals I’ve squirreled away in the freezer, and family favorites. Themed nights were also big helps: Meatless Monday, Favorites Fridays, etc. It took a couple hours to write it out, but then for the rest of the month, meal planning was handled and I could just look at the calendar to make out my shopping list.

Even blog posts (on four blogs!) were planned the month in advance. Topics and dates went on the calendar. I made up post drafts for each of those days with the topics all ready to go. I stockpiled topics and full posts. On weekends, I filled in the remaining posts and scheduled them to go.

It actually went really well—until I finished my novel. And then I let a lot of it fall apart. But all that advanced planning helped me to maintain a good routine, be productive and run the house better than I usually did.

So how can that apply to other goals?

Schedule them now.

If you want to write 1000, 2000 or 5000 words a day, pick a time and put it in your schedule. (Doing it at the same time each day can help, too.) Unplug from the Internet. Schedule a time with the fewest kids distractions around. I’ve used a handy browser plugin that would block certain time-wasting websites during certain times of the day—another helper.

5000 words a day was my goal during Nano 2011. I broke it into chunks and assigned each chunk a time: 1500 in the morning, 1500 in the afternoon and 2000 in the evening.

This works for other goals, too. If you want to read a certain number of books next year, start collecting recommendations. Figure out whether you prefer reading on an eReader/mobile device (if you have one) or paper book. I like library books since they come with built-in deadlines—and, oh yeah, they’re free.

If you’re trying to research a project, make a list of resources, get them and give yourself a timeline to read them.

If you want to lose weight, schedule your exercise sessions with yourself. Make up healthy meal plans in advance. Buy and prepare healthy snacks.

We all know that goals should to be broken down into steps to be achievable. But what it really comes down to is to just do it, to quote Nike. Little reminders and baby steps help me.

What does it take to help you just do it?

Photo by Kent Wein

Originally posted in January 2012

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Technique

NaNo success: scheduling

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NaNoWriMo can be a pretty crazy time—crazier if you don’t plan ahead. No matter when you do it, doubling or even tripling your work time isn’t easy, at least not if you’d like your life to, you know, not fall apart.

Planning in advance is one key to making it through Nano without alienating everyone around you. Plotting your book, of course, helps, since you don’t have to stop to ponder where your story is going next and how you’ll get there.

But there’s another kind of planning that can make or break your Nano productivity: your schedule. For me, I went through and wrote down everything that I needed to do in a day to keep the rest of my life from falling apart (and if my life falls apart, my three kids’ and my husband’s lives most likely will, too, and that’s not fair to them, no matter what month it is). We’re talking meals, face time with my kids, and the bare minimum housekeeping tasks. I also wrote out some things I need to do weekly and monthly, and a few one-off tasks I need to finish (Christmas shopping for our Christmas-at-Thanksgiving celebration).

I assigned a time for the daily and weekly housekeeping tasks—and I found I had a surprising amount of time left for writing once my schedule was in place—and if I follow the schedule, not only does it afford me more writing time, but my house actually runs better and can even be cleaner than it normally is!

But now I have to be careful not to squander that work time. My friend Kathleen Brebes won Nano 2010 in thirteen days and she had some tips on scheduling for success:

A big helper to finishing my novel in thirteen days was that I had made a pact with myself not sign on to the internet until my daily writing was complete; I didn’t even check AI stats [our writing group] or Nano stats until my daily writing was finished. But, I did keep up with my daily housework schedule and DayMinder Agenda. However, the second week of Nano, I didn’t walk or lift weights; I only stretched daily. And, I made sure not to neglect my spiritual and familial commitments.

from A Succor for Writing . . . by Kathleen Brebes: Succor: My First NaNoWriMo.

Now, if a first-time Wrimo can hit the goal in 13 days—and still make time to keep her house running smoothly—I hope we can all get inspiration from that.

What do you do to keep on your writing schedule? What do you let slip—and what can’t you let slip?

Photo by Dru Bloomfield

Originally from Nano 2011

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Technique

Gearing up for Nano!

This entry is part 14 of 16 in the series NaNoWriMo success and inspiration

All right, it’s official: I’m doing Nano (aka National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo). Feel free to add me as a buddy on the Nano site. You might be able to find me under the enigmatic name of “JordanMcCollum.”

I’m a loose plotter, so I’m spending the month of October preparing. I’m getting my plot outlined, getting to know my characters, researching the facts and the settings, pondering plot points and villains and subplots and schedules (mine, not the characters’)!

As I’ve worked on all these things, I’ve had to review all my favorite plotting methods and character posts—on others’ blogs, and on my own. So if you’re getting ready for NaNoWriMo, I’ll be sharing tips, strategies and advice to help you get the most out of your Nano experience.

We’ll start with some writing resources on my site that I’ve been thinking about and studying, and I hope they might help you prepare, too.

The plot thickens, my series on plotting, highlights plot structures and methods including the three act structure, Larry Brooks’s story structure, the Snowflake method, the Hero’s Journey, and now Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat (also available as a PDF, but it hasn’t been updated to include the Save the Cat posts).

Creating sympathetic characters—while you can edit a great deal of sympathy into your characters, keeping these things in mind as you write can help you get it right the first time.

Character arcs—last year, this was the series I needed most, specifically this post on finding your character’s arc. (Is it awesome or sad when you find the most amazingly helpful resource was written by you two years ago?)

Backstory—figuring out your character’s lifestory, what to leave out, and where to start your story.

And, depending on how you write, you might be able to try out some new techniques with Deep POV or dialogue—or save those for editing.

Although my normal blog schedule is only 2-3 times a week, I’ll be blogging a little extra as we prep for Nano to try to share the resources and inspiration I’ve been saving up!

Are you NaNoing? What are you doing to prepare?

Reposted from Nano 2011

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