Camp ended last night at midnight. Organizers describe Camp NaNoWriMo as “An Idyllic Writers’ Retreat, Smack-Dab in the Middle of Your Crazy Life.” I met the camp goal I set for April which was editing everyday and that makes me a winner! Everyone who meets his or her goal is considered a winner.

This time, the actual work was a little less onerous because the goal was readily achievable. I could do it while living my everyday life. When I was writing 50,000 words last November during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), writing became my life.

My next goal is to prepare for a new adventure: Revise Your Novel in 31 Days. The program was created by Janice Hardy as part of her Fiction University, a great web resource for writers.

She created the program for the month of March, but I didn’t learn of it until later in April. That’s OK; I wasn’t ready for it in March. In fact, I’m not ready yet. My goal is to start in mid-July.

The program is designed for novels that are farther along than mine. Fortunately, it will be available until the end of the year. I checked.

Odd, isn’t it? I have a lot of work to do to get my story to the point where I can consider a program to revise it? But I get it.

I read that if I finished 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, I probably wouldn’t even have a first draft for a novel; I’d have a zero draft. Maybe that would be less true for an experienced writer, but it was absolutely the case for me. I want my novel to be 80,000 to 100,000 words. But I don’t need to just add more words; I need to add more story, to craft my zero draft into something other people (besides my mother) will want to read.

My next checkpoint is July 13.

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Thank you for following the journey! I welcome feedback and suggestions.

If you’re new here, you may want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to start the story at the beginning. If you don’t have that much time, check out the “About the Journey” tab at the top of the page.

Editing is hard work! I thought creating the story would be difficult, but once I got into the groove, the writing flowed. Now it seems all I’m doing is throwing out scenes that don’t advance the plot. And I liked some of those scenes a lot!

I don’t actually throw anything away, but the folder called Unused Material keeps growing. At the end of  National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, I had over 50,000 words. I thought by now my word count would be higher, but it continues to fall.

The work I’ve started with is tightening the story and refining the narrative flow. Hopefully my efforts will result in a leaner and meaner version. I’m thinking of this as diet and exercise to make the book stronger. When I’m satisfied, I will dress the story up with all the compelling descriptions and details I have in mind. The result should be an attractive and appealing novel. That’s my plan!

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If you’re new here, you may want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to start the story at the beginning. If you don’t have that much time, check out the “About the Journey” tab at the top of the page.

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November 1, it was time to write. I sat down that morning to write my 2,000 words. I stared at the blank screen trying to figure out how to begin. What was I thinking? I arranged and rearranged my desk as panic rose in my throat. I thought about starting a game of Bejeweled or checking Facebook again.

Instead, I took several deep breaths. Then I looked again at the project I had created and read through the preliminary list of scenes I planned. Since I wasn’t sure how to start, I decided to just pick a scene to write, any scene. I just needed to start. I picked the one that seemed the easiest.

I continued that way the whole month of November. Each time I finished a scene, I picked a new one to write. Often, writing one scene would make me realize there was another I needed to add to the list. Sometimes, I wrote something that meant something else had to happen in an earlier scene. If that scene was already written, I’d make a note to make the change later.

I made it a point not to revisit scenes I’d already written except when I needed to be sure the story transition was right. I didn’t go back and edit anything in November. I was trying to write 50,000 words in one month, for goodness sake! I saw no sense in erasing or deleting even one word.

The program made it easy to add and move around scenes and also to make notes about changes to be made during the editing process. I kept the scene list open in front of me on the screen. Unlike some people who like to write on a totally blank screen, I liked having my scene list and document notes right in front of me. It gave me a sense of control and, as the scenes were written, I could see I was accomplishing something.

In the beginning, I was keeping a manual list of words per scene. That got to be a hassle when I started adding more detail into scenes which changed the word count. Then I learned the Scrivener Target tool could track my progress both daily and for the project as a whole. At the end of each day, I charted my word count on the NaNoWriMo website. Watching the line on the word count graph line move up kept me going — along with my determination to succeed (or fear of failure!) It was like any journey; it began with a single step.

Thank you for following the journey! I welcome feedback and suggestions.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to my blog using the link on the right side of the page.

If you’re new here, you may want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to start the story at the beginning. If you don’t have that much time, check out the “About the Journey” tab at the top of the page.

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When I signed up for NaNoWriMo, I learned about a computer program called Scrivener. It’s designed for writing. It’s not a word processor and it doesn’t have powerful formatting features to generate an attractive document. Once a writing project in completed in Scrivener, it can be moved to Word for formatting.

Where Scrivener excels is the ability to plan, develop and re-organize ideas. I can plan the scenes I envision in the novel and then easily move from one to another. If I have an idea for a scene I’m not writing now, I can make a note of it right where I will see it when I start that other scene, without losing momentum.. If I realize I need to plant a seed in an earlier scene for my current scene to make sense, I can do that without opening a new document, making my work flow much smoother.

Within my Scrivener file, I have places to store and easily access research, character studies, and settings for my story. I keep all my discarded scenes in case I want to add or modify them later. Everything is at my fingertips, without needing to open multiple files or programs. The program also takes a ‘snapshot’ of my project regularly so I never worry about back-ups while I’m working. I still make sure to back up my work in the cloud at the end of each session to be protected from machine failure.

When I want to review the flow of my story, I can look at the chapters and scenes like note cards on a corkboard. It reminds me of the 3 x 5 note cards I used to prepare term papers when I was in school. The best thing is that I can re-arrange them, just like I used to shuffle my note cards back then.

Probably my favorite feature as I was writing was the ability to set a daily word count target and easily monitor my progress right in Scrivener. If I had been working in Word, each file would have had a separate word count and edits or additions to existing files or scenes would have needed to be tracked manually.

I love the Scrivener features I use and I know there’s more to love that I haven’t yet discovered. I’ll continue to use it for my novel through the editing and re-writing process. I’m also using it to plan and keep track of this blog. I want to be sure to tell the whole story and not miss any key ideas!

For more information about Scrivener, go to literatureandlatte.com.

Full disclosure:  I have no connection with Scrivener or the company, Literature and Latte. I just love the program and writing 50,000 words without it would have been much more difficult!

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