November Vibes. 🍁

Making Room.

As part of my upcoming NaNoWriMo challenge, I decided to make my apartment a little bit more cozy. I have given away a lot of things over the past several of months because I moved into a smaller apartment. However, getting rid of things doesn’t seem so bad in the light that more that I have around me now are things that I appreciate rather than getting lost in a pile (it happens a lot!). My biggest purchase recently was to get a new writing desk, which also doubles as my artist easel, as there is a contraption on the front that allows the desk to lean forward for a convenient artist area! I am also welcoming in winter by hanging up three paintings which invite the woods into my house, reminiscent of the hiking experience I had this summer. I did not paint these, but they have been waiting in my closet for over a year and are finally seeing the light.

As part of the excitement of prepping for writing this November, I am posting a new Instagram story every day detailing some of my writing processes. I’m trying to keep this as authentic as possible, not staging much and using only what I am determined to use during this November writing month. One of the hardest pictures to take was probably my selfie on day two, because I always think that I need to look more authoritative, like a “real” author. To combat this doubt, I snapped the picture without allowing myself to take a second one. I have outlined a little bit of my new story for NaNo, but even as I add some detail for my main points, I realize that the story in my head is already melding into something else. This is the advantage and disadvantage of being a Pantser as I write, which means I don’t plan as much as I probably should. This time I am keeping it deliberate, writing solely for the love of writing and not to achieve something. I’m just going to enjoy the ride. It is still something I want to do in my life.

Some of the change in my new outline comes from mulling over stories that I’ve written before and wanting to try something completely different. The rest comes partially from the (intended) characters’ personalities. As is so constantly stated by some authors, sometimes the characters just want to do what they want to do. We’ll see where this takes me!

Plans.

I will be writing a young adult crossover mystery, which means that the book can be for young adults, but it’s also geared toward adults as well. I do want to focus the setting on somewhere in the eastern United States, possibly Virginia, but develop my own town. I’m hoping to either create a new language or a New World within the structure of earth. This means that the book actually might end up becoming a fantasy, but as many of my other manuscripts have turned out, I want it to include an element of realistic human drama as well. I’ve started reading books by authors that I think are writing similarly to how I want my novel to end up and I’m studying a few books that I’ve already read. I am combining all major elements into a spreadsheet that I use to compare similarities and differences among authors.

In the Future.

One of the challenges that I face this November is that I am teaching full-time, which leaves me with very little energy in the evenings. I might be able to get some of my word count completed in the morning, but I also hope to sketch out a few of my ideas—literally—to better develop the story in the long run. I’ve already started drawing out a layout of how each character can be involved with another, but as I’ve said previously, I am not sure where the story will take me yet. That is half the fun of just having the goal of writing as many words as I can in thirty days starting November 1. Also in the future, I hope to include some of my students in the writing process, as there is a young writer’s version of NaNoWriMo. However, the idea came to me too late in October to put this into motion and align it with all of their homeroom teachers, so it is something that I might look into next year. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the next few weeks, and hopefully more pictures and Pinterest boards will stir up my imagination!