NaNoWriMo – Page 3 – Lyndsey Hall

Camp NaNoWriMo

I got the idea for my novel last summer and spent most of August researching, plotting and outlining my story. I finally sat down and started writing in September and by Nov I had all of 15k words. Yes, I’m that fast.

Fortunately, in October, I discovered NaNoWriMo. I spent a couple of weeks reworking my outline and creating a list of 30 scenes I needed, in chronological order, to prepare for 30 days of writing 1,667 words per day in November.

On Nov 1st, I set to work and by Dec, although I didn’t win, I had written 35k words, giving me a total of 50k. I continued writing my first draft in Dec and Jan, and finally finished on 69k at the end of Jan.

After those few months of hard work (let’s not forget, this is my first ever novel, 69k words is the most I have ever written!) I took a couple of weeks off to recuperate and get some distance. And then, in Feb I started on draft two.

I’m now 35k words in, and I’m adding and removing characters and storylines, rewording almost every sentence and changing scenes and chapters around. Basically, it’s a lot of hard work and it’s taking longer than expected.

So, I’ve decided to take part in Camp NaNoWriMo, which takes place in April, and is more tailored towards personal goals. E.g. If you want to write a new draft, you can, and you can choose your own target word count. If you want to revise the draft you wrote in Nov, you can, and you can decide on a word count, number of hours, lines etc. The sky is your oyster, or whatever.

Personally, I’ll be continuing to work on my rewrites in the hopes that I can finish draft two by May. I’d like to get my MS handed out to beta readers for a couple of months this summer before working on their comments and finally sending it out to query towards the end of the year!

When you sign up to Camp Nano, you fill in your camper profile, and your project details, and then you can either choose to join a cabin with your writer friends, or be automatically assigned to a cabin based on your shared interests. I’m in a couple of writing groups on Facebook (Your Write Dream by Kristen Kieffer, and Edit & Repeat by Zoe Ashwood) and everyone has been talking about Camp and discussing cabins, but I’m going to wait and see where they allocate me. Hopefully, I’ll be put in a cabin with other YA fantasy writers working on rewrites! *Edit* I’ve now joined a cabin with some other writers from the Edit & Repeat group on Facebook! So excited for April 1st now.

So, are you thinking about signing up for Camp? If you’ve never taken part in Nano, it’s a really good way to ease yourself in to writing goals and word count targets – you get to choose your own in April, unlike November. Add me as a buddy! I’m lyndleloo (same on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram!).

See you at Camp,

Lyndsey

My growing TBR

Let’s not talk about the fact that I haven’t even read all of the books on my TBR from January.

Moving on! In the past two months, I have managed to acquire two new paperbacks and five audiobooks! I have, however, failed to join my local library and borrow any books, probably because of my already vertiginous to-be-read pile. There’s always next month.

Last night, I went to a local writers’ group. A local, published author, Julie Malone (pen name Jae Malone) who has written a series of middle grade fantasy novels about a boy from Nottingham, The Winterne Series, spoke about creating characters and world building. It was aimed at the fantasy genre, but most of Julie’s points were adaptable to every genre.

It was a really interesting talk, and reiterated the tips and advice I had already read about creating a fantasy world. It was reassuring to hear from a successful, published author that what I’m doing is right! Plus, now I have a huge list of fantasy authors to check out.

Everyone in the group was absolutely lovely, they meet fortnightly, with every other meeting being an informal ‘write-in’ where they are given a prompt and have to write as much as they can in an hour, and then share their work.

Having returned home from the group, I discovered that my lovely dog had decided to destroy my Illumicrate, which had arrived the day before. The box was absolutely shredded, and there were several teeth marks in one of the books. She is now banned from spending any time alone with any of my books, the little demon. Luckily, she didn’t actually eat any pages or damage it beyond reading, or she’d be for dinner tonight. Just kidding, she is my fur baby and any evil actions were probably learnt from me, I do love to devour books.

An unboxing of my Illumicrate (minus the box) will be up soon!

Right, on with the show, here’s what I’ll be reading if I ever get round to it.

Paperbacks

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

This was the first book I received in February’s Illumicrate, and it’s been on my wishlist since I first heard about it online. Based on the fairy tale about the Goblin King – and the movie, Labyrinth in which David Bowie played the character – it tells the story of Liesl, whose sister has been taken by goblins, and her quest to bring her back home.

The book is inspired by JJ’s love of music, Liesl composes songs with the Goblin King as her muse, having met him in the forest as a child. When the Goblin King refuses to let Kathe go without another maiden taking her place, Liesl volunteers. Captivated by the king, she finds that he still inspires her years later.

How amazing does that sound? I definitely feel the need to watch Labyrinth now!

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

This was the second book in my Illumicrate, a surprise ARC of Mark Lawrence‘s new book, the first in a new series called Book of the Ancestor.

I’m ashamed to say that I am yet to read a book by Lawrence, but I do have them all on my Audible wish list, ready to download at some point…That point has now been moved infinitely sooner! I get the impression this new series will be set in the same world as The Broken Empire and The Red Queen’s War, so I’ll have to work out if I need to read those series first.

According to the blurb, the Convent of Sweet Mercy trains young girls into lethally-skilled women, spending ten years teaching them to become deadly assassins. Women called Red Sisters. Nona Grey is eight years old and due to hang for a murder she didn’t commit. Saved from execution and taken to the convent, she must learn to become an assassin, but she can’t escape her secret and violent past.

Cannot wait to get to this one, it sounds right up my street. I tend towards YA fantasy, but a bit of adult fantasy will make a nice change and hopefully spark some ideas for my books.

Audiobooks

King’s Cage (Red Queen #3) by Victoria Aveyard

I’m currently listening to this one, but I have to say I’m struggling with it. This isn’t one of my favourite series, but I’m persevering to the end because I’ve invested so much time and want to see how it ends.

It’s not a bad series, loads of people love it, but it just hasn’t gripped me. I don’t like any of the characters, I’m not rooting for any of them – aside from the obvious division between right and wrong. I’m not a huge fan of the story, it’s heavy on the politics and war strategy, and I prefer stories that focus on the characters. Also, it seems to borrow heavily from a few others series that I have enjoyed a lot more, like The Hunger Games and The Grisha Trilogy.

My feelings on this book are that a lot of it could have been cut or condensed, making it a trilogy instead of a four book series. The bits where Mare is held captive are quite dull and drag on, and I don’t like Cameron’s POV. But that’s just me! You might love this one, don’t let me put you off!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I’ve heard a lot about this one, and it was on offer on Audible for £1.99, so I had to buy it. I’ve read that it’s similar to Caraval, which is a new book that I’m really keen to read, so I thought I’d check this out first so I can compare.

Le Cirque des Reves appears one day without warning, and is only open at night. It is utterly unique, unlike any circus you have ever seen. But behind the scenes, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, have been raised to compete in a game that can only end one way. Only one will be left standing. Until, they fall in love.

How magical does that sound? I absolutely cannot wait to listen to this one, I bet the audiobook will be fantastic. There are certain books that are just made for audio, they really come to life, and I can imagine this is one of them.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

Another one I’ve downloaded thanks to the amazing reviews I’ve seen online, I wasn’t sure whether to get this one on audio or in paperback as I read that it includes footnotes and I wasn’t sure how that would work on audio, but the Audible reviews clinched it for me.

Mia Corvere is the daughter of an executed traitor, a fledgling assassin seeking vengeance against those who destroyed her family. Mia has an ability, she can speak to the shadows, and she is apprenticed to the deadliest group of assassins in the Republic, the Red Church. With a killer on the loose in the halls of the Church, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation going on in the shadows she so loves, will she survive initiation and have her revenge?

I can’t get enough of books about assassins, the Throne of Glass series is one of my absolute faves, and this sounds just like my cup of tea. Plus, apparently, there is a talking shadow cat, so yeah…

And I Darken by Kiersten White

This is a Dracula retelling where Vlad the Impaler is actually Lada Dragwyla, a brutal Wallachian princess torn between her gentle younger brother, Radu and Mehmed, the heir to the Ottoman throne.

I am really excited about this one, I’ve been desperate to read it for ages and can’t wait to get to it, but as you can see, I’ve got so many amazing books on my TBR!

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

If you read my review of The Scorpio Races, you’ll know I’m a massive Stiefvater fan. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t read The Raven Cycle yet, I know it’s most people’s favourite Stiefvater series, and it’s been on my radar for a long, long time, I just never got to it. But, now I have the first book and I think I’m going to listen to it next, despite not having the other three books, and having so many others in my library (that’s my Audible library, sadly I do not have a physical library in my house).

So, The Raven Boys centres around the myth of the Raven King, which is a Welsh legend about Bran the Blessed. It follows Blue and Gansey, the daughter of a clairvoyant who can’t see, and a rich, private school boy who, unhappy with his lot, goes on a strange and dangerous quest, with his three friends. Blue has always known that she will be the cause of her true love’s death, and now she is being drawn to Gansey and starting to worry about what that means.

I have high hopes for this one, thanks to the buzz it gets online, so it better not let me down! Especially, after I adored The Scorpio Races.

So, those are the books I have added to my TBR in the last two months! What with the several books from my last update that I still haven’t read, I definitely don’t need to be buying any more books for a while! I wish I could read more quickly, but I’m still editing my novel, and beta reading for a couple of writer friends.

I also signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo this week, which takes place in April, and I thought was a real life camp, like a writers retreat, but have discovered is all online, like the November version. So, yeah, I’m pretty busy for the next couple of months! If you’re taking part in Camp Nano, add me as a buddy, I’m lyndleloo (same as on Twitter and Instagram!).

Lyndsey

Plotter vs. Pantser

First things first, I finished my first draft this week!! *does a little dance*

It’s around 70k words right now, and I’ve got plenty of notes about scenes I want to add, remove and rewrite, so who knows how long it will be in the end!

On that note, I thought I’d look at the pros and cons of being a plotter vs. a pantser today.

New to the terms? A plotter is someone who plots their novel out before writing it. A pantser is someone who “flies by the seat of their pants”.

I’ll be honest, I’m a card-carrying plotter, so this blog may be slightly biased, but I can definitely appreciate the creativity and freedom afforded by pantsing. It’s just not for me.

And that’s OK!

Both methods have pros and cons, not least because everyone is different. What works for one may not work for another.

That’s the beauty of art, it’s completely subjective.

So, whether you spend longer outlining your novels than you do writing them, or you sit down with a pen and notepad and just start scribbling, you might learn something from your creative counterparts that could help you improve your craft.

Let’s look at plotters…

There are as many different kinds of plotter as there are writers in the world, so don’t worry if you don’t identify with every word here.

Plotters tend to have an idea of what they are going to write before they start. Whether that’s just a broad concept of theme, a few character traits and maybe a general idea of setting, or a Filofax full of notes, character profiles and a scene by scene outline.

I only started writing seriously last year, and I read a lot of blogs and articles about novel writing before I sat down at my laptop to start chapter one. Mainly by Kristen Kieffer of She’s Novel, Faye Kirwin of Writerology and Christine Frazier of Better Novel Project. I learned a lot about writing in general, and picked up some brilliant tips for crafting a novel that readers will love.

I had an idea of what I wanted to write – I love YA fantasy and knew that was going to be the genre for my first novel (I’ve toyed with making it Middle Grade while writing, but decided against it). I also had a setting in mind – Sherwood Forest, or a fictionalised version, as I live nearby – and a vague idea of plot. I wanted my protagonist to be a teenage girl who discovers a hidden, magical world and learns about her true self over the course of the book.

So, with these things in mind, and a Word doc full of notes and snippets of potential scenes, I sat down to write.

I wrote about 15,000 words in September and October, and then I discovered NaNoWriMo. I stumbled upon the term on Twitter and Googled it, and I’m so glad I did. I decided to join in, knowing that I wasn’t exactly speeding through my first draft at this rate.

In preparation for my first NaNo, I read a bunch of blogs on how to get the most out of it. The one that helped me the most was from Better Novel Project – Day-by-day NaNoWriMo outline: your 30 day cheatsheet. Essentially, this is a list of thirty scenes that you need for your novel, a sort of skeleton framework that you then complete with your own ideas and plot points.

This is the single most helpful idea that I have come across since starting writing. I didn’t follow the framework religiously, but creating a list of thirty scenes I knew I needed to write meant that I always had something to write about during November. I never struggled with where to take the story next, and when I wasn’t feeling inspired I could skip ahead to a different scene.

This level of structure and discipline really worked for me. It’s not for everyone, but I intend to do something similar every time I plot a novel, NaNoWriMo or not. Having a spreadsheet of scenes worked better for me than having a list of events for each chapter or act. I need a more detailed plan with key plot points laid out in order – I can always insert subplots and rearrange the order at a later date.

So, what are the pros for plotters?

You know where your story is ultimately headed and are less likely to veer off track
Your characters are unlikely to behave in unexpected, contradictory ways
You won’t struggle for something to write (goodbye, writer’s block!)
You know what your next scene/plot point is and you just need to figure out how to get there
You’re left with a framework that will allow you to go back and add scenes and subplots with ease
You’ll probably finish the book before your pantser friends (not including the time you spent outlining!)

Cons?

You’re not as free to make major changes whilst writing, or risk making your whole outline irrelevant
When the muse strikes, you might fight it rather than let it flow through you
If a new scene or character presents themselves you need to figure out where they fit into your plan
Lots of writers start writing without any idea of how the story will conclude, they like the freedom and excitement of seeing where the story takes them – plotting sort of ruins that
Plotting can make it difficult to be creative, many writers feel too restricted by a rigid outline

Any other pros or cons for being a plotter? Leave them in the comments!

Now, let’s take a look at pantsers…

Ah, pantsers. You’re much braver than I!

Pantsers range from those with a vague idea of where they want the story to go, to those who start with only a blank page and an open mind.

The main risk with pantsing is writer’s block. Without an outline, it can be easy to lose momentum and struggle with where to take your characters and their stories.

On the other hand, the freedom to write whatever you want must be fantastic for many creatives. With no rules and no restrictions, some incredible and individual works of art can be created.

What are the pros of being a pantser?

Freedom to write whatever, whenever, and wherever you like (within the story that is, please don’t write while driving!)
Flexibility – don’t like a character? Kill them. Don’t like where you plot is going? Change it.
Some of the best ideas have come out of the random scribblings of a writer just playing around, trying something new or breaking the rules
If freewriting or writing sprints help you to get into the right mindset for writing, pantsing may just be for you!

And cons?

Writer’s block is every writer’s worst nightmare, and pantsers are more likely to be struck down by it as they don’t have a plan to follow
Without an outline, it can be easy to get off track and wind up with a long and rambling middle section that will need a lot of editing to tighten up
Your characters may start acting ‘out of character’ if you don’t decide beforehand on their personalities, backgrounds and motivations
Writing about ancient Egyptian Gods? Corruption in local flower competitions? You’re going to have a lot of research to do when you get to draft number two! Make one too many mistakes in your assumptions and your entire plot could wind up on the cutting room floor.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Or a ‘plantser’? What are the pros and cons of your method? Dish the dirt in the comments!

Lyndsey