My NaNoWriMo To-Do List

Today is 10-11-12. What’s that mean? I don’t know, but I think it’s cool to note anyways. I’ve always thought it fun to look at the numerical patterns found on our calendar.

Today also marks twenty days to the start of National Novel Writing Month. If I thought my life was crazy for June Novel Writing Month then it’s going to be absolutely insane for NaNoWriMo!

Twenty days. Just twenty days. Only twenty days left. Yikes!

Am I feeling the pressure? Yeah, a little bit. Mostly because I’m a behind on planning; I had hoped to be better prepared for the November challenge than I am at this point.

On my NaNoWriMo to-do list yet is:

Plan Thoroughly. I have yet to go through my calendar and make a game plan for each day of the month. I need to set a writing schedule for the month and then start practicing it so my body doesn’t go into shock on November 1^st. That means re-establishing my daily writing routine of going to bed earlier and waking up sooner. I love sleeping in so this arrangement sucks but I know I’m more productive in the mornings.

Clear My Schedule. One big thing going on in November that I cannot get out of – no ands, ifs, or buts about it – is my sister’s wedding. But otherwise, as of now, I have nothing going on all month and I need to make sure it stays that way.

Organize, Organize! The story I will be writing in November has a bunch of paper scraps with notes and ideas written on them from years of thinking about this tale. They’re around here somewhere. I just need to find them and put them into something that resembles organization. I plan to do my pre-writing and note organizing with a free writing program I love called yWriter5. And once I get all those notes in order and do my character sketches, I need to write my outline that I’ll use for NaNo.

Research. While my story is set in an imaginary world that is created in my head, there are still a few topics that I need to research. Such as the concept of worm holes and superstitions.

Write, Read and Clean. I want to write a rough draft of a blog post for each week in November to free up more writing time that I can dedicate to NaNo. I hope to find time to read a few reference books and I also need to clean my writing space so I won’t get distracted mid-month by all the clutter.

Oh, and I still need to write “the end” on my current WiP so I can focus fully on my NaNo story. I’ll be doing that on Saturday…I think.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What are the big things on your to-do list before November 1^st?

I'm looking for some guest bloggers in October and November also, so if you're interested in writing about writing, send me a message!