NaNoPrep – Kelsey Sorge

1. Attempt to remember your password for the NaNoWriMo website.
2. Press the “forgot my password” button.
3. Attempt to remember your email password so that you can retrieve your NaNo password.
4. Finally log in to the NaNoWriMo site.
5. Ignore all 77 of your unread messages.
6. Spend five minutes trying to come up with a title for your novel.
7. Decide that your novel’s title is Working Title.
8. Eat a piece of candy as a reward for coming up with a title.
9. Open Scrivener to a new project page.
10. Carefully place your hands on the home row of your keyboard and attempt to type a sentence.
11. Fail miserably because you’ve never been able to type with your fingers on the home row.
12. Reassure yourself that hunting and pecking is a legitimate means of typing.
13. Eat more candy.
14. Drink a glass of milk.
15. Put on socks.
16. Change your novel’s title to Fable.
17. Remember that Fable is the name of a video game.
18. Change novel’s title to Working Title (again).
19. Throw away all of the candy wrappers that you have accumulated.
21. Attempt to type a synopsis for your novel.
22. Remember that you have not planned out your novel.
23. At all.
24. You have no idea what to type. Your heart is racing.
25. Is your novel about fables?
26. Probably not. The title just sounded cool.
27. Maybe your novel should be a retelling of a fable.
28. Decide that your novel is definitely not a retelling of a fable.
29. Fables are lame because they have morals.
30. You have no morals.
31. You also have no ideas for NaNoWriMo.
32. Open a new project page (despite your old one being blank) and write down the first thing that comes to mind.
33. “My secret sadness is that I’m half a person.”
34. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.
35. Maybe you should try to write a fable instead.
36. Open a third project page.
37. Write a blog entry about how not to write a novel in thirty-seven easy steps.

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NaNoWriMocHArt

Since tomorrow is October first, two important things will happen:

In order to better traumatize the neighborhood children, Dylan will change out our boring, ordinary porch light bulbs for spooky purple ones.
I’ll start outlining my seventh (!) NaNoWriMo novel.

(I think we are equally excited.)

My mother is the one who introduced me to National Novel Writing Month, so she’s the one to blame for the past six Novembers. Six years of frantic typing, meandering plots, poorly-designed covers, and antagonists who randomly disappear halfway through the novel have not yet (if you can possibly believe it) resulted in a polished, complex story that’s ripe for publication.

Here are some things that I have achieved over the course of six National Novel Writing Months:

302,954 words
Two finished novels and four semi-coherent “things” that resemble stories
Carpal tunnel
Several classes of students who, while incredulous at first, end up finishing the competition and finding themselves remarkably proud of what they’ve accomplished
Countless grey hairs (the kind that make me look like a witch rather than an elegant, dignified author)

But hey. Witches are kinda cool. And at least I’ll have the spooky purple light bulbs to match.

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Tag: NaNoPrep

How to Not Write a Novel in Thirty-Seven Easy Steps

October First