Kendal: With Nanowrimo looming a mere 5 days away I am having a hard time keeping my mind from over thinking and over plotting. (If you are unaware – April and I are doing Nano this year! Woot! Woot! You can find more information about this insane adventure at www.nanowrimo.org) and  I am thinking about how scary it is to set such high goals. That is why I will be leaning on my friends for support and help when I start to feel discouraged. Are you a solitude writer? Or does online chat groups, message boards, chat times, and write and meets help you?

So I have done it all: writing on my own, in a chat room and in person with a writing friend. All have their benefits. I love having someone/a group to help me talk out a difficult scene or figure out a new plot twist, but I think I have smaller word counts because I get distracted easily (especially in person if we are at a coffee shop and there is cake nearby).

Here is my nano plan:

1.       I promise to get up early every morning and write 1000 words before leaving for work.

2.       I promise to post weekly updates on Romantic Inks smackdown with April (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

3.       I promise to meet in person with my writing pal twice a week.

4.       Sunday nights if I have made goal I’m dragging DH out for ice cream!

So this time next week all us nanoers should be 5,000 words into our stories!

April, what is your writing plan?

April: Honestly, I’ve been so busy trying to prep for it that I hadn’t really decided on a strategy. Currently I’m thinking, just get 8 pages a day. Just eight pages. Of course that sounds lofty; but if I’ve done everything right with the approach I’ve been taking that’s do-able. Now, can I shut off my internal editor long enough to slam through those 8 pages, now there is the real question.

I wonder if I’ll even remember this coming month? And um, did you HAVE to mention that by Tuesday we’d already have 20 pages written. Twenty pages!!! Of course the beginning is my strong suit. Endings too… It’s the flippin’ middle.

As for my status: I’m close to being ready. I have basic sketches of all characters, a narrative outline, GMC’s for all major characters, and a scene by scene outline of my story laid out.  Two things left to do: Write up a narrative flow of my outline (I’m going to do that tonight) and really detailed character sketches of all major characters (I have seven biggies so one a day and three on Saturday—Totally do-able and I’m on track) Kendal, how are you prepped to rock?

Kendal: Honestly? I plan of hitting the grocery store, doing a mountain of laundry, and scrubbing my house from top to bottom before November 1^st. No writing, no planning, nothing else but resting up for the big write-a-thon!

We’d love to hear your plans! Please feel free to comment!