Ramblings of an aspiring writer

Remember when I mentioned not stressing last week? Well, if you’re still feeling the urge, it’s perfectly acceptable to panic now.

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Just kidding.

Yes, time is tight, and if you’ve just joined us, you’re probably looking at past posts and saying, “Five weeks of prep for pantsing?” Relax. It really isn’t all that bad. Other than “finish the other projects hanging over your head”, most of what I’ve mentioned here can be done in a much shorter time span. And hell, you can pants with nothing at all prepped. So, one more time, no stressing allowed.

With seven days left, this is basically time to finish up all the things you didn’t do already based on my handy-dandy five week schedule. But, some of you are more on the ball than me and have your crap together. For you, I will offer these suggestions:

1 – Settings: if you’re writing realistic, get to know the locations you are using. If you’re writing sf/f, plan out your locations a little — maybe give some of them names. For me this means mapping out a solar system and figuring out what each planet is like. Um, yeah, just now regretting the whole “space western” concept.

2 – First versus third: Maybe others are okay with switching from one PoV to another then going back and changing later, butI prefer to figure this one out in advance. I’m more comfortable in first, but for this one, I know I have to use third person (with I think three point of view characters).  There are a few varieties of third person though. If you are unfamiliar with them, here is a decent place to visit (http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/point_of_view_definitions_and_examples). Oh, and just a personal request, please avoid second person PoV. It makes my head hurt. Thanks.

3 – Characters: Yes, those guys (and girls) again. Spend some time getting to know them – don’t force it – just let them percolate in your brain. For instance, I knew when I first started thinking about my captain that he was “haunted”. It was a key thing I looked for when choosing who to model him after. I had no clue what caused it though. I do now, and I’m pretty sure it will affect a lot of things in the narrative. The one I don’t have yet that I really need is my antagonist. So far I only have the vaguest ideas about what they are doing and why. I don’t have a name or a face. That’s the person I need to spend this week getting to know better.

4 – Read something: This could be a novel, a short story, a poem. I don’t really think it matters, as long as it’s well-written. Read something good to inspire you to be your best. Or if that really doesn’t work for you, read something you don’t appreciate as much and tell yourself, “I can do better than this.” In your genre, out of your genre, a genre you’ve never touched before, or one that you’ve forgotten you love/hate. Just read.

5 – Clean-it-up: I mentioned cleaning four weeks ago. Don’t give yourself the “I need to clean” excuse in November. Start with a clean house/apartment/room. For goodness’ sake, at least start with a clean writing space
That’s it. Get as much as you want/need done ahead of time, but get cracking. I mean, after all …

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THERE’S ONLY SEVEN DAYS LEFT!!!! (Less if you read this after Sunday )

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And just one more reminder, www.nanowrimo.org is notoriously overloaded the last couple days of October and the first couple of November. If you haven’t signed up prior to next weekend, wait until at least the middle of the first week, just to save yourself some unnecessary headache. (Thank Iapetus for this one, since I didn’t even think to mention it.)