Oh no, not again…
I’m not ready. Last year at this stage I had a full outline with notes about what was going to happen in each chapter; this year, all I have is the general idea. Last year it felt exciting, this year it has a definite tinge of getting out of bed at 6.00 on a cold, wet morning.
Still, what the heck.
I’m not any further ahead. I know where things have to start and end up, a couple of events along the way, the unifying themes and underlying imagery, but really — I have no idea how all of this will fit together at all.
Most importantly, though, I’ve yet to reread last year’s effort. If this one is going to be a more-or-less sequel to the last, remembering what happened in the first book is a fairly crucial matter.
I do like saying ‘Book the Second’ a lot. Gives it this import that it probably doesn’t merit. Enh.
Capt. Renault
October 20, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I’m sort of pleased that you’re doing a sequel, Captain – I look forward to reading it (not that I wouldn’t have looked forward to reading something totally different).
I have managed to get a bit of planning in over the last few days or so, but I’m still not as ready as I was last year.
plegmund
October 21, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I’m a faithful reading of your principal blog, Consciousentities, and I was so pleased to see that you would be attempting NaNoWrimo this year. I’m going to try it myself under the name 2bsirius. I assume you are plegmund there. I’ll be checking on your progress occasionally, if I can spare the time away from my own daily word count demands.
VERY BEST OF LUCK!
2bsirius
October 27, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Thanks, 2bsirius – good luck! ‘The Shadow Map’ is what you’re going to be doing? If you’re posting the text, I’ll look in on that.
(I am Plegmund – silly name, but I’m sort of stuck with it)
plegmund
October 28, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Thanks to the boss being away today, I now have an outline, with a rough word count on how long each ‘chapter’ should take. I’m a little concerned in that the first episode is going to be 10-15K long, which seems inordinately long just to, you know, set things in action.
Enh. We’ll see. At least I now have something resembling a road map. That’s more than I had last year — which was just an outline with no associated word count to stick to. Hopefully, this means I won’t have to insert another 10,000 word dream sequence again.
Capt. R.
October 30, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I just go with 2,000 words per chapter – it doesn’t work out, but it gives me a baseline.
Last year I had quite a lot of detail ready about what was going to happen in each chapter – much less this year, though some bits will be alright.
I just can’t believe the start is so close.
plegmund
October 30, 2009 at 9:57 pm