October 31, 2022: Happy Halloween
Daily Diary, Day 790:
My plan today is to get a walk in early, because I have an optometrist appointment (still having trouble adjusting to the new glasses.) After checking the prescription is right, then I hope to order new frames that work better.
This weekend, the weather was gorgeous, I achieved all my goals, in exercise and getting ready to start participating tomorrow in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. Saturday, I finished working out the major and minor plot arcs. Then Sunday I completed an outline that went day-by-day. For each day for the rest of the book, I wrote about 3 sentences, noting where the scene would be set, which characters would be in each scene, and what main plot points should be covered in each scene.
I made it all the way through the climax and epilog by dinner time. I have found that this level of outline leaves plenty of flexibility, and often the actually writing might cover 2-3 scenes within a chapter, or even expand to more than one chapter. I ended up feeling quite excited about writing this last chunk of the book.
I used to do more detail ahead of time for each scene, and I would have already done this for the entire book. However, having been doing this pretty non-stop since 2009, I can see how my growing confidence level means I don’t have to work everything out ahead of time. In fact, until this weekend, I didn’t really have a good idea about what the climax event was going to be. And, even now, I haven’t pinned down the specific details of how that climax will play out—just have where, when, and who sketched out. I know that some authors confess that if they work out any kind of outline, so that the “story” is complete, they get bored. I’m the opposite, I can’t wait to bring each scene to full life, still leaving myself up to the surprise when a character I hadn’t planned on entering the scene enters, or one of my characters says something surprising, or there is a new twist to a plot point that emerges. And if I have done my job right, I even enjoy editing because it means I get to “experience” the scene and hang out with the characters again, each time more vividly alive to me.
The work I completed this weekend means I should have a couple of hours this afternoon to get ahead on marketing tasks for the next week and maybe even get some words written. I would like this jump start because Tuesday, I have two long phone calls scheduled for the morning, so I only have the afternoon to write. But the rest of the week the days are freer.
Just a reminder, my plan is to start writing and posting these daily posts in the early evening during NaNoWriMo, leaving more of my day free for writing on the novel.
Finally, I’ve been saving this skeleton threesome for my last Halloween photo, really inventive!