First week of NaNo Prep 101

Every year I have trouble finishing NaNoWriMo. I start strong and then it just sizzles out. To prevent this from happening I have to do something different this year. That is why I am very happy to resort to the NaNo Prep resource site. Here they share a lot of ideas and resources shared over six weeks to get ready for November.

Generating ideas with lists

I like to generate ideas by doing a brainstorm and one of my favorite exercises from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is to list everything you love. So the prompt for the first week of prepping was perfect for me. Here is the list I came up with. (go to the site for full instructions). I also took a look at my Mac Safari reading list to see what I had found interesting enough to save.

My list of 20

1. The roaring twenties
2. Highland cattle
3. Hot air ballons
4. Old maps
5. Notebooks
6. The Library of Alexandria
7. The Ocean
8. Survival skills
9. Photographs
10. British crime series
11. Family gossip and tales from the past
12. Random facts from encyclopedias
13. The habits of writers
14. Theology
15. Magic the Gathering
16. Cross fit documetaries
17. Storytelling
18. Golf
19. Tarot
20. Argentina

For the six weeks of prepping I am using the bullet journal method to keep it all together. The image below shows a snippet from the first week.

I created a A4 printable dot grid bullet journal pdf for filling out more pages with prep work for NaNoWriMo.

Plot-generator ideas NaNo Prep 101

I love to come up with ideas but I also like to be surprised. That is where the word and plot generator resources comes in handy. Last year of prep I went with the idea from the NaNo Prep 101 suggested plot generator. I shared it on Insta in this highlight.

This year I used the same plot generator and this is what I landed with.

A man in his seventies, who is very generous.
A woman in her early thirties, who is very manipulative.
The story begins in an aeroplane.
Someone is wrongly accused of a crime. 
It’s a story about greed.
Your character reluctantly becomes involved

Plot generator

A twist to the list

Things often end up on our list because they invoke a special kind of feeling but I also like to work the other way around. I come up with a feeling or emotion and then I pair it with a thing or a place which I associate with that same feeling or emotion. To make it easy on myself I have a deck of cards where I have written down all kinds of emotions and then I just draw one and put down the first thing that comes to mind on paper. I also include the ones that have a more negative aspect to it because let’s be honest sometimes we also love to dislike something. I will use this exercise to develop the story idea from the plot generator.

So for example if I want to know how a character reacts to be wrongly accused of a crime I draw a playing card and write a scene with the emotion written on it. I think this could be helpful for week two themed Create complex characters.

How are your prepping for NaNoWriMo striding along?