How I’ve Prepared for NaNoWriMo 2020!

I shared the basics of my story in this post. In this post I want to go into details about how I’ve been preparing for NaNoWriMo. 

I’ve been writing since I was 10 years old and I’ve basically always needed a plot to write. I’ve tried to be a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants and not a lot of planning) but it hasn’t worked for me. I like to have an outline that gives me the major plot points with enough room to change things as necessary. 

The first thing I do is use a bullet point list of any and all scenes I can come up with. I usually have the beginning, the main climax and the ending by the time my synopsis is written. I also create a separate list of scenes I’d like in my story but don’t know where it fits in.   

After that, I flesh out the rest to have a better story. I’ve been using the 15 beat sheet outline method from Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. I got both books at the beginning of the year to help me plot my stories. 

Specifically, blue Papermate Profile 1.4 pens and college ruled composition notebooks. I am pen and paper gal so I can never truly write any story without it. I love these pens so much that I have about ten extras at all times. I have a very bad memory and handwriting things helps me remember better. It’s not perfect, and it obviously makes it hard to count my words, but I’d much rather get all of the words down versus not. 

Scrivener 

When I won Camp NaNoWriMo, I was able to get a half off code for Scrivener so I jumped at the chance. While I do hand write most of my story, I do type up my stories. 

I’m using Google Docs for voice to text annotations. I find it a lot easier than typing out everything I’ve written. As this is NaNoWriMo, I don’t care as much about punctuation so I go with what little the software can capture. 

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about my BuJo on this blog but I’ve really fallen in love with it. I don’t do a lot of the pretty, decorative planning but I pulled out all sorts of stickers for me to keep track of how many words I’ve written. 

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, coffee (frozen and cold brew), water, and a few Indian snacks that I always like to have. I think that I’m also going to get myself a few Starbucks coffees as rewards. 

I’m really trying to get a head start at the beginning of the month when I know that my excitement for the story is going to be at it’s peak. I want to take a few rest days. We have Diwali on the 14th, my dad’s birthday some time after that, and of course, Thanksgiving. While Thanksgiving really isn’t all that big for us Diwali is one of the most auspicious days for Hindus. Now that my family lives all over the place, when we come together for Diwali, it’s going to be especially amazing. 

I’m really hoping that all of this is enough for me to win NaNoWriMo this year. That’s my biggest goals for this year. I want to write this story as it comes to me.