NaNoWriMo Journal

NaNoWriMo 03: Tools, Techniques, and Teachers

Why do we try to make titles alliterative?  It is catchy, though, and it’s hard to resist.

For those just tuning in, this is a journal in which I am recording the experiences of writing a novel in a single month, in November of 2014.  I've never attempted this before, but I'm determined to make this work.  (Details are at http://nanowrimo.org/, if you want to try it.)

I will also be posting my novel, day by day, as I actually write it, so you can see it come together, over time.  I'm hoping that will teach both you and me some things about what makes for a good novel.

What I want to do at this point is lay out some of the tools I'm using, that I believe will make this goal achievable, along with the strategy I am using.  I will also share some of the people who taught me along the way, because they might help you, too.

Tools

The technical tools I am using are simply a word processor or text editor, to get the words onto the screen.  Literally anything will do.  Commuting to work is my reading time, with my Kindle reading to me as I drive, or I would be using that time to dictate through my phone.  I do type fast, so anything that lets me get the words on the screen works.  I can add italics, bold face, etc., later.  If I am writing plain text, I use TextPad (https://www.textpad.com/) or notepad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/).

The main word processor I use is WordPerfect.  I use both WordPerfect and Word on a daily basis, and have been since the early 1980s, but there is a very large difference, for me, between the two, and I like the better control WordPerfect gives me over how it looks.  

I am currently writing this on my laptop as a Google doc, sitting on my couch at three in the morning, with Satin snoozing on the love seat beside me, and occasionally purring, squeaking, and barking in her sleep.  (Yes, she does that.)

For text entry, however, it does not matter at all.  If I’m doing first draft, I have to be in first draft mode.  I have to give myself permission to write badly.  (More about that in a minute.)  I can’t be thinking about presentation, or whether anyone will like it.  Focus on the story.  I’ve even sent story chunks as emails to myself when I’m on vacation, although integrating them can be a little messy.

If I have to integrate different versions of something I’ve worked on in different places, I use WinMerge (http://winmerge.org/)   It’s free and works great.

If you’ve ever had a hard drive full of creative material go down, taking your work with it, you have (hopefully) learned the lesson about backups.  I use CrashPlan to keep the stuff on my hard drive backed up into the cloud, and my Wattpad material all goes into Google Docs before it goes into Wattpad.  

Speaking as a web programmer (my day job,) I do hope that none of you are typing your creative material straight into Wattpad.  As much as I love Wattpad, you are not in control of your source material there, and Wattpad does get flaky at times.  If they have a glitch and your work is lost, it is you who lose.  You are the interested party.  Protect your creative work.

Late addition:  I'm revising this a bit, trying make the links usable, and Wattpad has deleted half of my content on this chapter.  I've removed everything new and tried to save it again, but I save and it is gone.  Maybe it will come back, and maybe it won't.  Q.e.d.  Keep your master copy somewhere else!

If you put the Wattpad story into a Google doc first, it will also make it much easier, when you get the revisions done and are ready to publish (as a novel, short story, poetry collection or whatever) outside of Wattpad.  (If you do this, you have to remember to do your revisions in the Google doc, then transfer them back over to Wattpad.  It’s a bit of extra effort, but it is worth it.  Alternatively, you can make the edit on Wattpad, and cut and paste back to the Google copy, but it’s easier to keep in mind that your master version is NOT the one in Wattpad.)