NaNo2017: My Last-Minute Prep and the First Few Days

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Wow, can you believe it’s already day four?! NaNoWriMo is flying by! I mean, four out of thirty isn’t much (only about 13%), but it’s still several days which I’ve spent writing like a maniac.

But, before I start talking about my (amazing) NaNo progress, let’s talk about my last minute prep.

Really all my prep was last minute. I didn’t start outlining until early October, and then I put it off and put it off until … I did most of it a week before NaNo, quite a chunk of it on October 31st!

But in the end, I was ready to go on November 1st.

Note: this is a thrown-together post without the proper pictures and such that I’m used to having … so please forgive me. I’m having a crazy week. (Updates on that at the end, too.)

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Notebook Outline

So, I usually start outlining in a notebook (you saw the starts of that in my last post). I try to summarize the whole plot. Basically, it’s a big block of text cut up into bullet points.

I usually write this at least twice through (changing it and making all kinds of notes about changes between these outlines). (I also made an original half-done outline on the computer before this that I worked off of.)

This time, I think I did three notebook versions of the outline and two computer versions. (More on that in a moment.)

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Computer Outline

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I’ve never done an actual outline this this, with neatly arranged i, ii, and iis, but I did this year! I mean, I technically just made a big point for each scene(ish) and then put in whatever random thoughts I had about it, but … it’s an Official Outline, y’all.

My very first official outline. #plotterpride

(And yes, my scene-summary outlines were probably must more thorough, but this is much more me. Sharp. Quick. To the point. The kind of thing I can read at a glance.)

So … I typed up and wrote most of that (^) on October 31st. And I’m actually super happy with how it turned out! I tend to be a major procrastinator, so a lot of the time things end up being all over the place, but this actually turned out well … despite my last-minute-ness.