Japan:

Josh and I have finalized our packing list and have decided to pack enough clothes for a week.  The hotel website says it offers a 24 hour laundry service. Josh thinks that this is a laundry room that will be open to us; I’m thinking it’s a pay per garment type of thing, but either way, the clothes will get washed!

We’ve also ordered our foreign currency through the bank. We ordered enough to get us through the first week or so, long enough to find a Bank of America ATM in Tokyo. Yes, there is one of those there, but it’s like finding a needle in a hay stack.

Since this weekend in tax free here in NC, I’m going to shop for some new shirts and shorts. Maybe a few other odds and ends we’ll need.

NaNoWriMo:

Haven’t done much on my NaNo plot lately. The plot itself is complete, but it’s time to start working on the outline- and, I don’t know. I’m feeling very hesitant about starting on it. I think I’ll wait until I get back before seriously sitting down and doing it.

My current WiP is a whole other matter. I’ve overhauled the plot structure and have started the outline from where I stopped writing last time. The outline method I’m using now, the phase method, I really think it’s more suited to my style. It is more time consuming and the outline will probably end up being a third the size of the finished manuscript, but by completing such an detailed outline, I’ll make all the decisions writing that, that would normally stall my writing for days. There for cutting the time of actually writing the manuscript nearly in half.

Not sure if that last paragraph made any sense, but meh. You’re welcome to complain in the comment section. I’ve got the best crit group in the world to get to.

Until next y’all.

In preperation for NaNo, I’ve been thinking about plots. I had a few picked out with two leading the group as great possiblities. Those two were:

• Sequeal to Grimm Aspects: Grimm Mistakes – All I’ve got for this idea was that I’d be introducing werewolves to the story line and the war between the factions insue. Main characters switch to Lucas and Auburn, with Lucas being the POV focus.
• Character inherits a house and it’s current tenent: a demon or a vampire. 

I have some reservations about starting the sequeal to Grimm Aspects when the first draft of that piece isn’t anywhere near finished. I feel that the elements of Grimm could change so drastically that starting Grimm Mistakes would be a bad idea.

The second possiblity wasn’t much, but it’s hit a strong chord within me. I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out what I could do to spice it up. Divorcee with kids, family issues, a whole nest of vampires; none of it seemed to fit. So the other night, I took a trip through the Adopt a Plot thread to see if anything I read would spark an idea, and it did.

Here is my idea for NaNoWriMo 2010: The Set of Skeleton Keys

After accepting the inheritance that her grandfather left her, Mary Brooks must pass a series of tests to prove that she is worthy of taking her grandfather’s place as the Grim Reaper’s assistant.

Mary is an antisocial young woman whose only real “friend” is her social butterfly older sister and her trickster mentor-ish grandfather, who has recently passed on. Her grandfather leaves her his shop, which Mary can’t recall ever having seen before with the instructions to “have fun.”
She then finds out that her grandfather was a sort of Grim Reaper’s assistant, and now that he’s dead, she has to pass a series of tests before she can take over his job of helping Lost Souls to move on. Her only assistance comes in the form of a few cryptic clues her grandfather left around the shop and one less than helpful demon who has managed the shop in the grandfather’s absence.

I’ve got my rough outline finished and currently, I’m working on completing character sheets for the main characters, Mary and Apollo (the demon- though, I’m not sure if that’s going to be his name or not). After these are completed, I’ll start work on a phase outline, reward system, and graphics for the NaNo site.

Here’s a quick definition from NaNoWriMo.org:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

It’s July now and it’s time for me to get to planning! I will make the 50,000 word count this year. I WILL!! Well, I hope that I will. Last year was a success and a fail at the same time. I made it as far as ever have into NaNo, 16,000 words, but that was still 34,000 words short!

So here are my calculations for 2010:

November 2010 = 30 days =50,000 /4 weeks =12,500 words a week (6 days) = roughly 2,000 per day.

If I can break my story into the 4 Sequences (parts) of 12,500 words each, that will be my weekly goal, with me trying for a daily goal of 2,000 words.   …Yikes.

My first step to preparing for NaNo is to start thinking about what story ideas I have lurking around my brain that I’d be comfortable writing for a month. My second step is kick up writing on my current Work in Process, and start trying to hit 2,000 words a day.

Is any one else going to do NaNo this year? Let me know and we can start planning together!

We’re now 16 days away from November 1st. Writers all over the world are eagerly awaiting 12:01am to kick off their novels in the spirit of NaNoWriMo. There are tons of tips and tricks out there for writers attempting to win NaNoWriMo. Tips that keep you thinking on your toes and make writing life easier, tricks to keep your word count from suffering, and gizmos like Write or Die that help you keep the words flowing!

So tips are up first. 5 tips that I’ve found to help writers participating in NaNoWriMo:

1. Write every day! Even if you only manage to get 5 words down one day, it’ll help you from putting it off the task of writing!
2. Give yourself a little reward for reaching your word count goal each day. (Mine’s a smiley sticker on my calendar!) You can also reverse this and say, if you don’t make your word count for the day, you have to scrub the kitchen floor.
3. Set a BIG reward for the end of the month. Something that you’ve wanted or wanted to do, and then give it to yourself if you win.
4. Put together a Survival Kit for the month of November. Add things like your favorite, non-messy, snacks; a cookbook of easy and fast recipes; noveling supplies; a plot-ninja box; comfy clothes and anything else you think you’d need for the month.
5. Outline or plan ahead. Have some idea about what you want to write about. It’ll help when you get stuck on ideas in the middle of November.

Here’s a few tricks to keep you going and to boost your word count! Remember, your NaNoWriMo novel is a rough draft, you can add, subtract and edit anything in December.

1. Never use contractions. Ever.
2. Sex scenes. They work, honestly.
3. Have a character who speaks a foreign language, so you have to translate everything.
4. Write dream sequences every time one of your characters sleeps. Long dream sequences which make no sense.
5. DO NOT DELETE, italicize. When you’re writing, do not delete anything! Capitalize it, italicize it, or if it really bothers you, turn the font color white. It’s a rough draft, and it can be dealt with at a later time, like in December!

There are a few gizmos out there designed to help writers. The first one I’d like to talk about is the famous Write or Die web application. This is a great motivator for those who have some trouble writing:

“Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences….

The idea is to instill in the would-be writer with a fear of not writing. We do this by employing principles taught in Introduction to Psychology. Anyone remember Operant Conditioning and Negative Reinforcement?

Negative Reinforcement “strengthens a behavior because a negative condition is stopped or avoided as a consequence of the behavior.”

Consequences:

• Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
• Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
• Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself

These consequences will persist until your preset conditions have been met (that is, your time is up or you’ve written you wordcount goal or both).”

Write or Die isn’t the only web app that helps you write. One Word.com has a similar idea, a simple text box in a web browser. They give you one word and 60 seconds to write all that comes to mind. The word changes from day to day, and you have the option of saving what you’ve written to to the site. This page is a great way to warm up to writing each day.

The next little gizmo I want to share with you is Wolfram Alpha. It’s a knowledge engine, and well, it’s a great tool for writers. Say you’re writing a story about Food and Nutrition, and you wanted to know how many calories are in a sweet potato… Well, let’s ask Wolfram. How many calories are in a sweet potato? If you looked at the page, you’ll see that it responded with more information than we asked for! Not only did it give us calories, but the nutritional facts and values as well. The best part about Wolfram is that you can ask it anything! Even your current location. It will do wonders for your research. Trust me.

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner! Take these ideas and run with them. Write right, and get cracking on your NaNo ideas!

One of the hardest decisions of NaNoWriMo, besides deciding what to write of course, is deciding WHEN to write. This will depend on when you have free time, when you’re done with work or school, when your house is quiet, or when you decide to escape off to a cafe to get a few words in. It really all comes down to what works for you. I prefer to write at night, when it’s dark and quiet outside and the house is equally quiet.

But don’t wait until November 1st to find out that you can only write in a certain situation! Spend the rest of October testing out your free time. Try writing, a short story perhaps by the end of the month, to test your out your prime writing times. Could you get up early and write an hour before you start your day? Or would you do better by staying up two hours after bedtime to write? How much could you write on your lunch break? Or between classes? Take a minuet to think about when you could really sit down and write.

There are also many times during your day that I’m sure you could jot down a few words here or there; say for instance while you’re waiting to use the shower, or for the coffee to brew. While your waiting in line for lunch, or at the store. Carry a small notebook with you or if you’ve got a cell phone, type and/or text parts of your story and send it to yourself! I’ve used the Notes app on my iPhone to write chapters while I was away from my computer once, and all I had to do is email it to myself to get it on my computer. There’s really a million great ways to keep writing, even if you’re away from your ideal writing haven and really, all those few little words here and there can add up! So keep on writing!