There are only 20 more days until the next session of Camp NaNoWriMo, and that means that it is time to start prepping and planning so I can focus on the writing in July.
Obviously this first post will talk about some of the preparation I am doing so I'm ready to work on Souls Unknowing again. I haven't worked on my Souls trilogy in a couple years, so one of the most important aspects of prep is reading over my original draft which has good bones but is otherwise pretty awful. I'm glad to see how much my writing has improved since high school. When I finished SU then, the draft was 95 pages single spaced and came in around 50,000 or so words. It was an amazing accomplishment at that time, but now most of my novels tend to clock in around 80-90,000 words.
Reading through that first draft also comes complete with the need to review character details. When I was writing this book, I think most of my background information and such was saved on floppy discs...which obviously aren't compatible with my laptop. Some of the work may have been saved on a thumb drive, but I don't know which one, so I'm basically starting from scratch.
One of the more fun parts of prepping for Camp NaNo is getting myself into the mood for writing a ghost story. That can actually be divided into two segments. First: watching Ghost Whisperer. I loved the show when it was on during my high school years and the character development as well as the portrayal of ghosts really helps to inspire me. Of course, in the show the story follows Melinda Gordon, who only shares her gift with her mother and grandmother, but in my trilogy I have a small group of people who can see and speak to the dead, so don't think that I'm trying to copy something I loved years ago.
The second segment of fun prep is doing some actual ghost hunting myself. Back in March, a friend took me to a public ghost hunt at the Mansfield Reformatory, which is also where they shot the movie Shawshank Redemption. We had an awesome time and that sparked some ideas for when I finally came back around to the Souls trilogy, so much so that I decided that I wanted to do another hunt closer to this session of Camp.
Unfortunately, the ghost hunts sell out pretty quickly, so I couldn't get in anytime in June, and in July I'd rather be trying to write as much as I can for Camp. However, there is a ghost hunt scheduled for August 1st, which is also my birthday, so that's a bonus. I'll get to do some more ghost box sessions and see if I can get some good ghostly photos (mostly orbs showing up in the image). It'll really help as I continue my writing process.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that not all prep is completely focused on Souls Unknowing. I also need to re-organize my office and desk. Having a sense of cleanliness and order will be very beneficial to the writing process and will help my mind to not be so cluttered.
And a random bit of prep for Camp NaNo is that I informed my usual lunch buddies at work that during the month of July I will not be joining them to eat, because I will instead be sitting by myself and trying to get as many words on the page as I can. Thankfully, letting them know in advance means I don't have to worry about accidentally blowing them off come July. Letting other people know about your participation in Camp NaNoWriMo also gives you people to whom you are accountable. If people know that you are supposed to be writing, then they will regularly ask for status updates, which for me is super helpful because it keeps me on track with my word count.
Another prep point that has nothing to do with writing or planning is to try and read a few books so I can have my From the Stacks review posts ready for you. I may or may not be all that successful with this one, and if I fail then I will have the posts up after the writing process is over. These past couple months I have been trying to focus more on writing than on reading and reviewing. I do have my review posts planned through the end of August though, so I just need to read the books and write the reviews.
SU Prep also means that I am thinking long term for the writing and publication process. If all goes well then I will write this book in July and August, and then it can be shipped off to my lovely beta readers and critique partners in September. I'm hoping that you all will help keep me focused and motivated on this timeline, because I have put this book off for too many years already and it needs to be done.
If all goes well then I will have Souls Unknowing out to the world this year, with Souls Abandoned to follow next year, and with any luck I can have Souls Crossing out in 2017. We'll see. First I have to get back to all of my prepping and organizing and rewrite the story so it can be so much better than my original concepts.
Are any of you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in July? If so, how are you prepping for the month? Are you a serious plotter, or do you go with the more adrenaline inducing pantser method? And what writing project(s) are you working on for the month?
No comments:
Post a Comment