Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Things I'll be doing differently this NaNoWriMo

Looking at the things I learned from NaNoWriMo's past, I've come up with some things I'll be doing differently this year.
  • Disconnecting from the internet when I'm going to write.  It's far too easy to check Goodreads or Facebook when I'm trying to be productive.
  • Writing at the same time every day instead of shoe-horning it in whenever I can.  I really need to get back in the habit of writing every day.
  • Doing my leaves before November 1st so I don't obsess over it while I'm trying to write
  • Keeping my novel on my thumb drive instead of using Google Documents.  In and of itself, Google Documents is great.  The troubles occur when I either don't have internet access or try to paste something to or from Google Documents into some other format.  It looks fine until you start noticing that the quotation marks don't match and the other text messes up your line breaks.
I've also got some potential future projects on the horizon.
  • The Unflappable Templeton Quinn - a steampunk mystery with punch card computers and dirigibles
  • The Gentleman Bookseller - a rewrite of the first novel length story I ever finished, incorporating background material from the aborted sequel and every writing trick I've learned in the past six or seven years.
  • The Gravedigger's Promise - re-working the plot of a crime story I tried writing last spring.  It was too convoluted and two Parker-ish.  I'll mostly be keeping the Gravedigger character and the setting
  • The Silencer - another crime novel, this one about a mutilated gunman seeking revenge and the detective that's on his tail.  I'll be swiping the structure of The Bride Wore Black for this one.
  • All for a Dime - a western about a gunfighter that gets out of a Mexican jail to find out someone's impersonating him and making a bundle off of dime novels and personal appearances
  • Cow Creamer Kerfuffle - a P. G. Wodehouse-inspired caper where everyone's trying to steal the cow creamer that inspired Code of the Woosters

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