NANOWRIMO 2022: Week One UPDATE

THIS WEEK WAS A WEEK
Between my favorite holiday (Halloween) and the recovery from the holiday (both myself and my child), and then editing a big old sweaty textbook in my day job, things have been slightly busy BUT I HAVE BEEN DOING GOOD THINGS. I promised myself recently I'd try to eat healthier (Halloween candy doesn't count) and exercise so I'm back to taking daily walks EVEN IF my workload is mind boggling and I NEED TO WRITE and guess what? I'm disgusted to report that I'm still getting stuff done so my theory that cutting out exercise saves me from anything is patently false.

A TRICK
I sort of cheated but I already confessed to that. I started this month with a bonus 7k words but arriving at my current destination was all me this week. It helps that I wrapped up any other side projects I had going on RIGHT BEFORE Nano started so I'm not reading anything else at the moment, even though my Boo loaned me Gideon the Ninth on October 30th and I am SO TEMPTED. I handed my current draft of Rosita Ruins the Heist off to another beta reader, so I'm not EVEN thinking about any other books. 

The Nowhere Man/Ghost Story has my full attention. 

And as this is a first draft/rough draft, I'm allowing myself (however painful) to not worry TOO MUCH about the actual writing and instead focus on the voice (since it's first-person POV) and getting the meat of the story down on paper. There will be plenty of time later to pretty up sentences and phrasing and excise bad exposition. This is GO TIME, BABY, YEAH and decorating the prose is like adding the pretty flowers on top of the cake and you have to make the cake part first which is usually so unattractive that people wouldn't eat it without frosting. 

​Damn. Now I'm kind of craving cake...

AESTHETIC
Since I enjoyed posting up the synopsis last week as a teaser, I thought I'd share more pre-work. I put together multiple Pinterest boards within Pinterest boards and settled on a sort of "mood/aesthetic" which so far doesn't match the writing style or tone so much as it flows with the story and the internal world of the characters. More on that later. Maybe when you read the book? ;) 

THAT'S NICE, BUT WHERE YOU AT?
Four chapters in and only four days in and I have a really good sense of where things are going. I just have to STAY THE COURSE which is so incredibly challenging for a former pantser turned plantser turned somewhat plotter. However, Molly Starr Park made some excellent decisions in the previous chapter and both Desmond and I are curious about what happens next. The only thing is, I know exactly what the next sequence will be! Ha ha!

I did not fully map out what occurs during the haunting, so this is fun mess-around break-stuff territory inside of a pretty well plotted outline so maybe that's the key? Build out the story and characters, but build in spaces for imagination and play to take over? 

It's Day 4 and I'm 11k words in to this beautiful, glorious NOT-mess. Let's see what kind of shenanigans I can get up to this weekend. *fingers crossed*