NaNoWriMo Declaration

In the past few days I have made some decisions.

First, I am using my bullet journal to keep track of my finances. Like a checkbook but tracking three accounts at once: individually, in total, and in total by month. I’ve done this before but now I’ve got a much more sophisticated set-up… and I’m putting it in a spreadsheet so I can use formulas to do the math for me, heh. F**k math.

Second, I am going to sign up for NaNoWriMo again.

Last year I won in the sense of word count but did not win in the sense of getting to the end of the novel. Not long after November I decided that draft needed so much work that it made more sense to switch to extensive rewrites rather than trying to finish it, and spent most of this year (by turns actively and passively) working more on my world building. I came up with some new sub-plots and some new characters that might plug up some of the gaping holes in the first draft. In short, instead of starting a new novel I am going to force myself to buckle down and write a second draft.

Over the next month or so I want to get a basic timeline down for this story. I want to figure out what happens when the main characters visit the Sea Queen, and then how/why they go north and encounter dragons. I want to really think about a sci-fi element lurking in the back of my mind, and whether or not I ought to incorporate it into this fantasy story.

Starting with this model of 9 Steps to Build a Strong Plot.