All tooled up and ready to write? Only hours to go and this post is to make sure you have everything at your fingertips for the 30 days of November. Complete your planning If you are a pantser - this will be a very quick process! If you are a planner, your outline will provide you with prompts for every day. The scene synopsis will guide you through what was to be your storyline. It's...
Time for the Kick-OFF! This week is a Kick-Off week for NaNoWriMo. When you sign up to the NaNoWriMo site and choose your region, you'll find you have an ML - and that person is responsible for organizing meetings before, during and after NaNo. I'm ML for Europe :: England :: Cornwall. What is the KICK-OFF? The KO (short for Kick-Off) is the official start of NaNo preparation in the run-up to the month of...
For those of you eager to get started, NaNoWriMo doors are now open. Time to sign up! Registered for NaNoWriMo before? If you have registered before, there should be an email invitation in your Inbox. Click on the Announce your 2017 NaNoWriMo novel now button. And this is where you'll land - except it'll be your novel page, not mine! New to NaNoWriMo? Go to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up. Once you’ve registered, buddy up with me. My...
Create your world with a Setting Sketch for each location In the same way, as a scriptwriter sets the scene for a film, a novelist needs to invent a world for the cast of characters to inhabit. The choice for each setting within the world of your novel is entirely yours. You could stick close to home using familiar locations. Distant lands could give you the excuse to travel for research purposes. ...
Time for casting! One of the fun parts of writing a new novel is casting your characters: giving them names, deciding their hopes and dreams, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Everyone needs a secret, and only you will decide what it is and if and when the other characters might discover it. Casting time: Setting up a new character sketch To set up a new character sketch, right click on the Characters folder and select Add /...
Let’s start at the very beginning: setting up a new project file on Scrivener and deciding what our novel is about. Setting up a new project file In this one file, everything that you need to write your NaNo2017 novel can be collected ahead of 1 November. You won’t write a single word of your manuscript until NaNo2017 officially starts, but you’ll have everything at your fingertips when the whistle blows at...
I use Scrivener - for all my writing projects. Why? Because it makes me feel I am in control. Correction: I am in control! Why use Scrivener for NaNo2017? (NaNo is short for NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month, and that’s November – the month I set aside each year to write, write, write.) Why use Scrivener for NaNo2017? A good question! There are four quick answers: Scrivener will make the planning of my...
Ready to Rock? NaNo2017 is only 8 weeks away and this time will fly by, so – if you are keen to use Scrivener for NaNo2017 – now is the time to start learning how. What is NANO? NaNo, short for NaNoWriMo, is the National Novel Writers Month. Writers all over the world spend the 30 days of November writing the first 50K words of their novel. Some aim higher. 80K. 100K! The NaNoWriMo website...
If you missed yesterday's online workshop reviewing Clare Mackintosh's novel I SEE YOU, you can catch up, by watching the video. This RedPen Training session was the first of four FREE online writers' workshops. The next one is on Saturday 5 August, 12 noon until 3 pm (yes, 3 hours, but with comfort breaks scheduled in). Book your seat here. What we looked for in I SEE YOU Ahead of the first workshop, I...
