Category: NaNoWriMo

My name is Imogen, and I’ve never written a novel. But today is the 1st of July and that means it’s the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo. Scrivner is downloading as I type and I thought it would be interesting to track this a little, after all, one day I would like for some of you to read it! So here are my workable goals for Camp NaNoWriMo 2019, helped by the 5 things I learned from an unsuccessful NaNoWriMo.

Read one of my research books
I have a couple of books I’ve bought for research when it comes to my planned projects, but I struggle with non-fiction sometimes. I actually think reading more academically and making notes will help me get through them- my old teachers might be shocked to hear that!

Write a good chunk of notes
I’m not a great planner when it comes to writing but if I’ve learnt anything from my past couple years at the Open University, it’s that I do better when I have at least a little bit of an idea of where I’m going. So I took one of my immaculate notebooks off the shelf and wrote in it! I even made a spelling mistake which is truly the sign that a notebook is used. I want to get an outline, a couple of mind maps and use a couple of Rhianne’s incredible resources from her website to really get a grip on my project.

Write the ending 
Here’s the thing, I know my characters quite well already and I know where I want them to end up. I know ho I want this story to end, I just don’t know how I’m going to get them there. My hope is that once I’ve got it out of my head and actually in words, my brain will be free to figure out a little bit more.

6,200 words
Slow and steady wins the race, as they always say. There are 31 days in July and I’d like to write around 200 words a day. That feels manageable since I know that there’ll be busy days when I won’t be able to write anything, and hopefully some productive days when I write quite a lot. Heck, this blog post is more than 200 words. Wish me luck!

I lost NaNoWriMo. I think it was pretty clear that was going to happen after Update 1, and definitely after Update 2. I’m still excited about the story, and I’m still going to write it even now that November is over. And I learnt a lot from the experience and that’s good enough for me. So here are the 5 Things my unsuccessful NaNo taught me..

I wanted to write these check-ins to keep myself accountable for NaNo and I’m totally regretting it. I haven’t been writing! There’s not much difference from my first check in because the past fortnight has been horrible; both my co-writer and I have been sick, the election happened which was just awful, and I haven’t hit my sweet spot yet.

The Plan
We took some time out and planned up to Chapter 8 which took some time but helped with understanding where our characters would be at what time, and the pace. Pace is always important when it comes to zombies, and not just the question of running zombies or shuffling zombies. We want to get the spread of the infection right. Too fast and there’s just chaos, too slow and what’s the point. So *spoiler alert* Chapter 8 is when shit goes down.

Ashley
“I think we’re determined and doing our best considering our schedules. We have a lot of heart.” 
She’s right, as always. We’re going to get this done. We’ve written things in the past that have spanned over three years, different laptops, jobs, huge life events- and we still finished it. No abandoned projects when we’re working on them.

The Word Count
Just over 3500

It’s Day 2 of NaNoWriMo and I’m doing a quick check-in before I start writing today. In four weeks today it’ll all be over, and I’d love to have a record of how I did and what worked and didn’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself! NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where writers around the world get together and write a first draft of 50,000 words in November. Here’s a bit more about my NaNoWriMo…

The Co-Writer
I’ve mentioned Ashley, and linked her blog before, but in short- we met 7 years ago in a The Walking Dead chatroom and a bunch of us just became buddies. As you do with strangers on the internet. We still watch the show, and I love it, even if it has become garbage. Season 6 ended with a cliffhanger that got most fans annoyed and that with the continuity problems led to this conversation and the beginning of it all:

The Story
Late last year, I had an idea for a podcast. It hasn’t yet come into fruition because, in short, 2016 has been awful for my group of friends that I’m doing it with. Without giving too much away, it’s about transatlantic friendships and zombies, because write what you know, right? My character is a 999 Ambulance service operator called Velma. And hopefully in a week, I’ll have something I’ve written that I’ll want to share and a title that isn’t just ‘Ashley and Imogen Write a Novel.’

The Word Count
At the moment- 294. Don’t judge me. I haven’t written yet today.