Tag Archives: plots

NaNoWriMo Update

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November is National Novel Writing Month.
NaNoWriMo award from 2022.

This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo. Above was the award for my first attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in November, which I completed by Nov. 29.

What is NaNoWriMo? According to their website: “National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.”

A funny thing happened a few months after my first try. My computer randomly began deleting files (not really funny!) I worked with Apple for three full days, but never got my manuscript “The Playgroup” back. It was gone along with many other things including my HOA newsletters. I thought I had a backup automatically scheduled every week. But I was wrong about that. Nothing hurt more than losing losing that one file of 50,000 words.

One day when my son was four or five, he deleted all my writing files from our Apple computer. I don’t know why he did it, or if he knew what he did. I literally started screaming and crying all at once. I must have terrified him.

That’s how I felt when my laptop randomly did the same thing. Apple knew what caused it, but didn’t admit to me that it was a known issue. They did say it wasn’t a software issue, but was due to hardware.

My second year of NaNoWriMo was 2023.

I had recovered mentally enough to recreate my manuscript. Then a few months later, I signed up for an online writing class on plots. I view my writing as more character driven and I wanted to improve my plotting. LA from Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 was taking classes with Gotham Writers. I decided to sign up, too. For my final assignment, which was creating a complex plot, I used my Playgroup manuscript for the outline. I got good feedback from the instructor on how to improve and make the plot stronger.

Fast forward to November 2024

I’m using the notes the instructor from Gotham Writers Workshop gave me to revise my manuscript. I had tinkered with it earlier this year, but got bogged down. I tend to revise only a few words here or there. Big changes eluded me.

But with NaNoWriMo and writing every day with accountability, I am getting to the meat of revising. I’m making big changes. I’m adding chapters and deleting a character. If it doesn’t move the story forward, it’s gone. It’s not really a matter of writing so many words each day as in previous years. It’s more sitting down every day and working on it for an hour or two and letting the drama unfold.

If you have participated in NaNoWriMo, what was your experience like?

When you edit or revise, do you tend to tinker around the edges or take a chain saw to your projects?

A pain in the neck

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A bit of beauty in my neighborhood.

I have a work in progress and felt my plot had some gaping holes in it. So in January, I took a writing class on plots. One of the assignments was outlining along a very constructive plot point path. I used my WIP and found that the assignment helped. Then I got feedback from the instructor with further suggestions.

It took me until late March to mull over the suggestions and get to work on rewriting and revising.

After spending countless hours sitting at my laptop, I decided to mix in some simple exercises. (My former writing mentor Gerald Petievich once told me that writers need buns of steel.)

I began leg exercises for strength and balance. They are from my PT when I had knee surgery post ski accident. I’ve been reading that falling when we get older is not a good thing. Once elderly start falling, they usually don’t last long. So why wait? I break up my writing with those exercises.

Then I decided to do something about my flabby arms. I started with three pounds weights and now I’m at five. But I have a sharp pain in my neck and shoulders. I was on the phone with my daughter yesterday and she said, “You’re not doing the exercises correctly.”

“How do you know?” I asked. After all she isn’t here.

She said, “Because you sit with your shoulders around your ears. You aren’t engaging the correct muscles.”

I explained that my husband (her dad) showed me how to do them. She insists he doesn’t know how, either. Well, she is coming by for a short visit, dropping off Waffles the Pug while she goes to a destination wedding in Portugal. Maybe I can get some private instructions from her.

In the meantime, I’ve got a pain in the neck and shoulders. Maybe I should stick to legs?

Do you find you need to get up and move after sitting at the computer?

What exercises do you do?