No NaNoWriMo for Me…

I know. I haven’t been posting lately. Stress levels are high and I tend to shut down during those times.

I’ve been swamped with Cub Scout stuff lately. Not as insane as this time last year when the wildfires tossed everything up in the air, but almost. This is DS’s final year in the pack and he’ll move on to Boy Scouts in February. The problem? I’m ready for it to be February now and they still have no idea who’s going to be filling the three or four jobs I’ve been doing. Between popcorn and membership, September through November are hectic months here and I learned my lesson last year. I CAN do it, but I’m in high stress avoidance mode right now.

That being said, I do have a plan for November to get all my projects organized and laid out with what exactly needs done to complete them. So far, I have a short summary outline roughed out on one of them. Dont’ laugh, that’s actual progress! More than just organizing, what I’m doing could be more accurately called pre-writing. Of course I probably have 100k in pre-writing stacked up at this point if you combined all the projects together. This really shouldn’t surprise me.

I think I’m going to try to take these one project at a time, do the summary outline followed by a much more detailed checklist and then a detailed scene outline. If you’re curious as to how I came up with this plan it’s from the From First Draft To Finished Novel: A Writer’s Guide To Cohesive Story Building by Karen S. Wiesner.

The book is apparently a companion book to her book First Draft in 30 Days and while she says they can be used in conjunction, sometimes it feels like some of the information to do so slipped through an editing crack. But, since I don’t have that book, and I’m not exactly rushing out to buy it either, I’m going to plod along with the info I do have.

I love the way she presents the idea of layering through an analogy of building a house. You have to have a firm foundation, then a strong framing and then later you get to finish and decorate it. I think I’ve tried to start at the wrong end and haven’t exactly made sure my foundation and framing were the strongest before dashing ahead and picking out curtains and furniture. Basically, I’m still trying to figure out process while layering everything else along the way.

I also recently read Les Edgerton’s Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go which focuses on openings and spends a great deal on opening sentences. I’ve been thinking about that a lot too, but still find ideas coming to mind from Nancy Kress’ book Elements of Writing Fiction – Beginnings, Middles & Ends to reinforce the ideas about what makes a strong and successful hook that is integral to the story and can sustain it. I’m still having issues with finding where a given story starts, but I’m slowly being able to distinguish backstory from what makes an interesting beginning for me as a reader. Yes, I need to know all that info, but it doesn’t have to show up on page one of the story.

I know part of it is terminology, but this bit about inciting incident or story spark or turning point is also giving me fits. Start where the main character’s life changes. Ok. Sounds easy, right? But throw in wrenches like, “Oh, if (s)he doesn’t realize he’s life is changing yet, start later” or “Does it matter who’s life is changing because of this decision/action/etc? Who’s POV do you start out in first?”

I know, stop thinking and just do it. Hey, at least we get an extra hour tonight. I’m using mine to sleep!