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Writer's pictureOlivia Brooks

Preptober Checkpoint & Updates!




Preptober Checkpoint & Updates!


How is it already halfway through October? The month is flying by which means my time for planning for NaNoWriMo is slipping through my fingers.


Does anyone else feel the same way?


Today I am coming on here to remind you that progress is good progress no matter how big or small. I am also here to share what I have been doing to best prepare myself going into my second NaNoWriMo. My first one, last year, was overly successful with a completed 75k-word draft.


Insane. I know.


This year since I am rewriting that slop of a draft, I know the pace will be slower and therefore I am using preptober to my advantage to prepare and create an outline of cohesion.


That is, define and add to individual scenes. I did this for my first draft of the project I just set aside and although I took a while longer to complete that first draft, it is not nearly as disturbing to look back on as this one. The one where I literally could mistake the story for a word vomit.


But hey! The story idea is down, now the goal is to make it approachable… readable… functional… fluid… however you feel is the best way to describe a good book.


So, yeah, I am outlining by scene. I have talked about this in a past post but I really live by this. It made my last drafting session go by so smoothly. I was obviously nervous and overwhelmed at certain times (who isn’t when you are literally creating a new world for people to try and understand) but overall the scene outline kept me on track and never did I lost my train of thought.


Even when I would not write for a three-week period.


It’s great! And by having these scenes, which are much more underwhelming than full-blown chapters (which by the way I no longer let me divide an outline into chapters, I wait until the draft is done and go through the scenes to figure out which clusters can be made into flushed out chapters), the process is easier. Not easy, but easier.


In my opinion of course.


But that is what I have been up to. I finished the other project’s first draft about a week ago and have been focusing on this story now. And I do finally have working titles for them but have not built up the courage to share them.


This is what I have been doing for preptober in summary:

  1. First reread - focused on structure and big picture moments to cut and add.

  2. Create a scene outline based on these changes.

  3. Second reread - focus on setting, plot, character arcs, and what could be added and flushed out.

  4. Create a new scene outline based on these notes

  5. Third reread - sensory details, descriptors, showing and telling… the grime of it all

  6. Create a final and fluid scene outline to go into NaNo with



That is what is going on right now. Halfway through the month and I am halfway through number three. Not bad, but the time is ticking!


I hope this quick update is able to comfort you that no process is perfect, no one really knows what is ever going on. At least that is what I tell myself.


I hope you are getting in some good writing and prep work for the upcoming month! This time of year is my favorite anyways and thinking about getting that second draft printed and in my hands going into winter break is a dream.


A dream we are all capable of and worthy of completing! I believe in you, let’s write together and accomplish all of our goals!


Happy Monday… happy writing… happy Fall!


See you soon!

Livi









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