It's NaNoWriMo time again!

So it's October, which means it's time for NaNoWriMo planning. I'm still plodding away on my main novel project, but NaNoWriMo is a good time to take a break.

With that in mind, I'm writing something as different as possible from my novel. It's going to be light-hearted and fun, with a basic plot and lots of action. The last time I wrote something similar it was the easiest and most fun 50,000 words ever.

 I'm also ML for the New Zealand: Wellington region this year. I un-officially did a lot of the organising last year and I still made it to 50,000, so hopefully I can do it again this year. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun.

 Last year I did Gwendoline Nelson's Pre-NaNoWriMo Boot Camp to get ready for NaNoWriMo (Gwen is my co-ML this year, yay!). It was a lot of work, and I didn't get through all of it. This year she's revamped it, so I'm giving it a go again. Week One involves planning your antagonist's story and creating your characters. The idea is that you can start with nothing, and by the end of the month you'll have a solid plan for NaNoWriMo. I may have cheated a little bit - I have a very rough outline of my novel already.

I've just finished up with Week one of Boot Camp, which means I now have an antagonist and a cast of characters. I could have done NaNoWriMo without Boot Camp - I already had a rough outline of my novel after all. But I think Boot Camp saves you a lot of work. You've got a lot more to work with when you inevitably run out of steam, for one thing - there'll be no need for plot ninjas when you know your characters well enough that you can predict what they'll do next. And if you do decide to continue with your novel after November it'll be in much better shape than if you hadn't done Boot Camp - much less editing out of paragraphs that are just the same sentence repeated in slightly different ways, or deleting unnecessary descriptions or sex scenes (yes, I am speaking from personal experience).

Boot Camp gives me a different perspective on my novel. Last year I ended up loving my antagonist so much that she became one of the protagonists in subsequent re-drafts. I don't feel the same about my antagonist this year, but planning out the story from the point of view of multiple characters gives it much more depth and makes it much easier to write. I think it will help with pacing, too - if I know what the antagonist is doing and how long that might take, I can make the main narrative flow a lot better.

Knowing my other characters (their personalities and their internal and external motivation) will also help with this. I am a planner in general, and I think knowing about your characters gives your book a lot of depth. And it's not that much work - both tasks for this week took perhaps a few hours tops.

I'll start Week Two of Boot Camp on Wednesday. For now I should use the remaining 26 days in October to do some last minute work on my main novel project before I have to give it up for a month.