Nov

8

NaNoWriMo 2010 Update #3

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I didn’t get a whole heck of a lot of writing done yesterday, but that’s okay. I should be able to make it up today. As of this moment, my word count for NaNo is 12,278. I’m still ahead of the game, but not by a heck of a lot.

Here are today’s worldbuilding links:

Jodi Henley’s “Will Work For Noodles” blog contains a lot of great advice for writers. Her November 6 entry More thoughts on world-building talks about what you should and shouldn’t include in your writing, and uses the movie Casablanca as an example.

Michael Caton’s Speculative Nonfiction blog has an entry about some worldbuilding tools. They’re more geared toward science fiction writers, but the links do lead to some very interesting sites.

Nov

6

NaNoWriMo 2010 Update #2

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I hit my quota early today (just over 1700 words, so I’m a bit over), but I’m going to keep on writing tonight when the kids are in bed. It’s a lot easier for me to concentrate when there’s less going on in the house.

Today’s thoughts on worldbuilding come care of several links I received through my Google Alerts. The first is Ilona Andrews and World Building and Fifth Element. She brings up a great point, that some things are so overused they become boring, but it’s the twists on real world things that sometimes spark the greatest interest in readers.

Next up is “So… You Want to be a World-Builder?” by Adam C. Glasier. It’s a look at fantasy worldbuilding by looking at published fantasy works and showing how different writers put info about their worlds into the book without doing the infamous info-dump.

The Daily Kos takes on worldbuilding in Write On! Worldbuilding, moment by moment, where the importance of a deck of self-shuffling cards is examined.

Nov

5

NaNoWriMo 2010 Update #1

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It’s the fifth day of NaNoWriMo, and I’m just bopping along with the words. I’ve decided to actually work on two different projects, but since both are being written now, and it’s all new words, I figure there’s no reason they both shouldn’t count.

If you look at the right-hand sidebar, you’ll see a badge announcing I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Below that is a little calendar showing my word count and then little rectangles for each day. The various colors mean different things. Here’s what the NaNo site says about it: “My Month is a simple display showing overall progress and how you did on any given day. Light green and red show where you were above or below the goal for the day, bold green and red are reserved for days where you did exceptionally well or monumentally badly.” Since I didn’t get any writing done yesterday (November 4th), I honestly earned that red box. However, at the time I’m writing this, I’m almost 3/4 of the way to my daily goal, so I don’t feel quite so bad about it. I’m several days ahead of the standard pace, so everything’s okay in my books. :)

My break time’s almost up, but before I get back to Alex and her fight against the bad guys, I’ve got a little bit of advice for when you’re writing fast and furious in a NaNo-like situation:

  • If you don’t remember a worldbuilding detail, don’t stress out about it. Make a note in the text to remind yourself during edits to go get it and put it in.
  • Should you find yourself having to do some worldbuilding on the fly, make sure you write it down so you don’t forget it later. I like to use index cards. I’ve got a stack of them tucked into the side of a shelf at my desk. When I think of something, I jot it down on a card and put it into the card file I’ve got set aside for the novel. I pull all those index cards out when I’m doing my editing and add the info to my worldbuilding notes.

And no, I’m not counting this blog entry toward my NaNo word count. :)