Raven's View

Oops, so far only one day in a row for the month of blog posts. Missed a day already.

Taking longer each day than I'd planned for NaNoWriMo - mostly from editing as I write. A no-no for first draft apparantely but I keep getting ideas of other areas to add to or details to research. Starting to get some discipline thankfully - I just add a note in the text, like ??check_what_local_breweries_might_be_near" . Can search after for ?? and only counts as one extra word.

I did a whack of words the first day, as I was excited to see what my characters did. My first time at this, so I did outline, key events, lots of scenes in between on index cards, so now am filling in the blanks. But I'm also trying to leave room for a 90 degree turn in the plot if needs be.
Because life iteslf has no plot - we can make plans if we want, but it just happens. So I think the no-outline method can work for people too. Just write whatever comes to you and your characters, let them chat and think, let them wander off, let them nap or pop out for a smoke or let them get bored and wander down to the corner store in the middle of something. Just as in life. Collect those moments, shuffle them back and forth in the timeline, and have fun.
My novel has some aboriginal links in it too -so there will be some dreaming and some symbolism of sorts.

Back to the novel now- Dave was heading off to learn what curling was all about - he's from Toronto, posted to rural Manitoba, so learning to curl is not really optional. Right now he's waiting for me to get him to the rink.