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NaNoWriMo 2017 – Day 6

I am at that point in the process of dreaming up a story where it’s hard to gauge if I’m productive or not.

I spent some more time reading about story structure and character, and I had planned to start doing the exercises in Holly Lisle’s „Create a Character Clinic“ (affiliate link) but then I found myself dragging my feet, and procrastinating like crazy.

Let’s just say that I have now taken care of all the admin stuff for my day job, and some household tasks that had been due for days.

And I found that I was stuck yet again in the whole novel-writing process because I couldn’t decide if I should plan or not, and how. I am pretty sure that planning and outlining is a very good thing – up to a point. But I will never be the person who invents a whole new language and several worlds with back history for centuries. That’s not how I tick. I usually make that kind of thing up as I go. For me more planning is definitely the way to go for now.

And I really wanted to do the planning just so because I’d like this to be the start of a new series, and one that will stay interesting for some time, and so I want to get it right. I also would love to write a novel that does not need two years of revision. I want to write fast and well, and have a finished thing after a reasonable amount of work.

The thing my husband reminded me about, the one I keep forgetting, is that I’m not a complete newbie. I’ve been writing for quite some time now, and the manuscripts where I made my really stupid beginner mistakes are sitting right over there in a desk drawer. So maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason why I tend not to do the exercises in the writing books I read. I know I could. No problem. It just doesn’t feel like doing that exercise will help me in finding the story I want.

So I’m thinking that maybe the detailed outline is not my thing after all. I have an idea of my main character, and today while doing the dishes after breakfast I got an inkling of the murder victim. And her daughter. And how the paranormal element might come into it.

I’ll sit down tomorrow morning and write some of it down. And then maybe I can get back to writing first draft soon. Without having to put myself through a ton of exercises, and worksheets and such.

Still pretty exciting this.

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