Preptober 2018
It’s almost the most wonderful time of the year for some writers. I’m talking about NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month.
NaNoWriMo is a fun and crazy approach to creative writing, where participants plan to write 50,000 words (or more!) from November 1st to November 30th. Check out their website here!
NaNoWriMo has been a thing since 1999, where they started out with only twenty-one participants, all from the San Francisco Bay area. There are now over 400,000 participants, from all around the world.
I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo since 2006, and I have reached my 50,000 words goal every year but one.
I’m also a ML, or Municipal Liaison- one of three in the Detroit region. MLs are official NaNoWriMo volunteers, and we coordinate everything from write-ins, big events like a Kick-Off at the beginning of November, and a Thank Goodness It’s Over party, participant swag, and more! This will be my 3rd year as a ML. With all the events that we have scheduled, it definitely keeps me busy!
Speaking of big events, Detroit’s NaNoWriMo events begin in October. We have a bake sale happening tomorrow, October 14th (It was originally scheduled for October 7th, but had to be rescheduled), and a Pre-NaNo Game Night happening on October 22nd.
For most of the NaNoWriMo participants, though, October is Prep-tober. It’s
the steps one takes in October to prepare for writing their novel in November. It’s where they decide what genre their novel will be, build their world, create and construct their characters, and plot their novel from start to finish.
I’m what they call a Pantser– a person who “writes by the seat of their pants”, who plunges into a story based on one idea. Pantsers plan very little, or not at all.
Though I can definitely appreciate the idea and effort behind Preptober, my Preptober only consists of making sure that I have a Plan A novel, and a Plan B novel. Basically, Plan A is the novel I am set on writing, and Plan B only gets used if I have writer’s block, if I suddenly come to hate Plan A, or even if I somehow finish Plan A but still have a good amount of words to go before reaching 50,000.
Plan A: My Role Play Berserker walking through a large field, battered and bruised, dragging a bloodied sword behind him.
Plan B: Trying my hand at writing Romance in between A Writer and a Dancer forced to work together. Based on a scene in my head where the Writer walks in on Dancer rehearsing. Song: Velveteen from the Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex soundtrack.
That’s it. That’s all I have “planned”. Plan B was originally Plan A, until I woke up from a dream with the image of my Berserker dragging a sword behind him. I figured that it would make a good Plan B, until I got to wondering more about it: What happened to him? Where is he headed? Where did he come from? I wanted to know more, so that idea became Plan A.
How about you? Even if you don’t write, are you a planner or a pantser in what you do? How do/would you do prep-tober? Let me know!
Raine