NaNo and Scrivener

So NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, next Monday morning at this time, writers in our time zone would have been able to have been working on their novels for 7 hours already. So close, and yet at the same time so far away.

I'm very eager to get started on my novel, to get the first words down on paper (or rather on the screen), but at the same time I know that I don't have my entire 50,000 words plotted out, and I'm kind of worried about that. But at the same time, I do still have a whole week left to finish that planning.

And a week to figure out Scrivener.

Yes, that's right, they are developing a version of Scrivener for Windows, and to make it even better, they are releasing a Beta version in time for people to have a bit of time to figure it out before November 1st.

I've heard some really good things about Scrivener, about how great it is to work with when you're writing novels, and I've looked at the screen shots and the videos. The cork board part of it, in particular, looks amazing to me. I've been using Liquid Story Binder for the past year (got it just before NaNoWriMo last year), and I like it, but from what I've seen, Scrivener looks so much more...user friendly for me.

So who out there is doing NaNo this year? Got your story planned out? I'd love to hear what you're thinking of doing while I'm waiting for them to release the Beta of Scrivener later today.

What have I gotten myself into?

I've got a really busy month and a half ahead of me. To start with, I'm planning on taking part in NaNoWriMo, 50,000 words in 30 days. To make it even worse, though, for some reason I decided to take in on myself to become the Bookdriver-in-Chief for the Great NaNoWriMo Book Drive in my city. So not only am I going to be trying my hardest to reach that elusive 50,000 word mark, something I have yet to accomplish, but I'm also going to be working at trying to gather 3000 books for the book drive. At least that's the goal.

So, the last couple days have left me wondering what the hell I've gotten myself into. How did I think I was going to be able to manage all of that? Especially since I work nights.

Another thing that I started wondering just today is whether I've got a good, marketable idea for my NaNo. I mean, of course it's good in that it's got me interested, but I would like to try and sell it, to publish it once I've finished. Problem is, the one that's leading to this uncertainty, is that I've never seen anything like my idea in any books.

It's a vampire story, and there's already a lot of those out there right now. But I'm going to be trying to look at how a person changes when they become a vampire, whether the fact that they become a monster is because of the person they are, because of the nature of the vampiric being, or a combination of the two by looking at a number of different types of vampires. Hopefully it'll draw some attention once it's finished.

I need to push this worry out of my mind, at least until December so I can get through NaNo. Write first, worry about publishing later, I'm going to just have to keep telling myself that. Well, tell myself to stop worrying and simply write.

Branching out

I recently won a copy of The Demon In Me by Michelle Rowen from a contest on Margaret Fisk’s blog, and let me tell you, I’m very glad that I did. Normally, I don’t read paranormal novels, nor books that are classified as actually being romances, though I do tend to favour fantasies that have romantic relationships. Similar, but not the same thing.

Yet, The Demon In Me is classified as a paranormal romance, and while reading it, I realized the truth of something I had heard other writers mention. I really need to branch out in my reading and check out a lot of different genres. Who knows what I might end up learning, or what other amazing books I might find.

Mind you, I haven’t gleaned all that much insight from the book yet, I was mostly just reading it before bed for entertainment this time through, but that doesn’t mean that on a second reading I won’t pick up a few things. In fact, I KNOW that I will, because I remember having at least a couple ‘huh, that’s interesting’ moments while reading. Unfortunately, I can’t for the life of me remember what made me think that now.

The book definitely deserves a second reading, even if it wasn’t for the fact that I need to go back and figure out what those ‘huh’ moments were. Let’s put it this way: instead of finishing up packing and moving stuff last Wednesday morning (we only had our old apartment until Thursday), I spent three hours reading to finish the novel.

This is just one early example. What other out of genre or unusual places have you found that helps your writing? Or, for those who are non-writers, what book have you read outside of your normal realm that has really impressed you?