NaNoWriMo starts one week from tomorrow!!! Yes, I am participating. I am PurpleInkSpot over there (whodathunkit). Do I know what I’m going to write about yet? Sort of. But not really. I have a general idea of my three main characters, one of which is likely more of a supporting character, but who knows, we’ll see where that goes. I have a general idea of setting. But until this week, I still didn’t know what the story was going to be. I realized something while listening to some writing podcasts earlier this week (thank you Michael Stackpole).
Conflict. I needed some sort of conflict for my characters. Without conflict, you really don’t have much of a story or plot. So I did some brainstorming yesterday, during my long commute (I was playing taxi to a RESCUE dog so I had a little extra time behind the wheel for deep contemplative thought). I came up with conflict. The two main characters each have their personal conflict to deal with, their own baggage. Then together, they will face down the third and final conflict. Now that I have that figured out, I can sit down this week and put together a rough outline to work from.
I have a little bit more research to do this week still. One of my characters is of a “supernatural” nature and I’ve realized that my knowledge of this being is really somewhat limited. So I’m researching some of the “rules” of this type of being. I’m hoping that will help me further develop her personal conflict.
I’m a member of the NaNoWriMo 2008 Swap Group over at Swap-Bot. We just completed a swap to create/buy a NaNoWriMo Mascot for our partner. For the partner I send to, I made a black cat from polymer clay. It sort of looks like a Maneki Neko. In the upraised paw it holds a pencil. Instead of holding a coin to its chest, it holds a piece of paper. I wish I had taken a picture, it turned out quite cute. My send partner is a cat person, so I figured she’d like that. The partner that sent to me went above and beyond. She sent me a pin and magnet reminding me to put my butt in a chair and my hands on the keyboard (though in my case it will be butt in chair hands on notebook first, then I’ll type it up later). Along with that she sent me a mascot for each week!! She wrapped them up separately, so I’m waiting for next Saturday to open the first one.
Still so much to do and only seven days left to do it all. I need to get down to work. But first, I need to go and wash this purple ink spot from my hand. Thanks for stopping by!
