Blog @ Melilyn.com

Gearing Up For NaNo

There’s less than a week until the beginning of November, and with it, NaNoWriMo. I’m really excited about participating this year, after two failed attempts, and I’m trying to do everything I can in the next week to get ready.

1. Cleaning up my room and my desk. I try to be an organized person, but I don’t always have the time to be. It’s hard to be creative in a messy space, so I’m going to do my best to get everything organized. Seriously… my desk is a mess.
2. Finishing the book I’m currently reading. I can read three books at once without really getting them mixed up, but throw my own novel into the mix and I start either getting confused or subconsciously copying things I’m reading.
3. Adding to my “Writing” playlist. I don’t know what it is, but the best music for noveling is soundtrack music. No, not the singing and dancing soundtrack, but the actual score from some of my favorite movies. The best for writing is Hans Zimmer (Pirates 3, to be exact) and Murray Gold (Doctor Who and Torchwood). Currently my playlist is five hours long; I need it to last a month.
4. Constantly thinking about the story I want to tell. I can’t work on the actual writing yet, so I just do a lot of planning and thinking. I  have to keep asking myself questions about the plot of my store… like, why did the whole thing start out this way, what causes this character to react a certain way, how can I bring it all together at the end? I put myself in the shoes of my characters and ask myself how I would get out of certain situations; this helps a lot when it comes time to sit down and write.
5. Downloading an app for my iPhone. Yes, don’t laugh. My iPhone comes with me even when a purse or a notepad may not, and so I find myself wanting to write a couple of paragraphs out when I find myself with a few extra minutes, or on break at work. “Notes” just wasn’t doing it for me, so I downloaded “Notebooks,” which not only has more features, but allows me to sync my .docx file to my phone so I can see exactly where I left off in the process of writing. Nerdy, but true!
6. Keep hyping myself up about it. I know myself, and I know that if I don’t get excited about something, I’ll forget about it. I’m planning on keeping you posted the whole way through; not necessarily for your benefit, but for mine.

Some of this stuff seems silly, but if it works, it works! I’ll keep you posted!