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Getting Ready For NaNoWriMo 2020


It’s been a horrid year for most people. One bright spot for me is that NaNoWriMo is a month away. It’s time to get serious about creating the next novel.

It’s been a horrid year for most people. One bright spot for me is that NaNoWriMo is a month away. It’s time to get serious about creating the next novel.

This year, I started toying with an idea for a weird Sherlock Holmes story, and I’ve decided to write it this November. Unlike most of my NaNoWriMo efforts I’m not going to limit myself to 50K words–well I am. This novel will be 100K, but I will do 50 of it in November.

I’d laid out the 99 scenes for the story in a previous post, and this past week I pulled out the list and found that it still held up (for the most part). I broke the scenes into three groups, one group per act of a three act story. I’m in the process of writing summaries for each of the acts. This lets me flesh out the story and the corresponding scenes in a cohesive way.

I’m planning, but I’m not a planner–I’m more of a panster. However, I do enjoy having a skeleton from which to work, and the scenes are my skeleton. Having this high-level structure helps me focus and shows me the way. This is not to say that once I start writing, I won’t deviate.

I’m also nearing the end of editing my noir so I can publish it. I plan on getting that out of the way so I can focus on NaNoWriMo.

This year has been a mess. Focusing on writing and my other activities has been problematic. I’m upbeat that things are turning around for me.

See you in November. Oh, and if you want a copy of my Sherlock Holmes short story, sign up for my email.

Word up!