Last Day of NANOWRIMO --- Oh No!

 Where did the month go? 

Certainly not on the page. I have an outline, some character sketches but mostly I have a lot of research notes. 

My story is about Witches who are sisters and when one of them passes the others summon her back from the dead. 

The research involved reading a lot about witches. Yikes! there is so much stuff about witches all over the net. Very interesting stuff. 

Three things I learned about witches; 

1. Not all witches are Wiccan. Wiccan is more of a religion. Some witches are just kind of  free range. 

2. There are many different kind of witches. Hedge witches, Kitchen witches, Animist witches, Green witches, Crystal witch, Eclectic witch and on some pages even more types. 

3. Crystal are frequently used by witches. The history and uses of different crystals is very interesting. I could spend days researching them! 

I also now know the symbolism of the Pentagram. The five points on the star stand for Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.  This was interesting because in movies the Pentagram is often associated with the devil or evil. Actually it's more representing the world around us, nature. 

The problem with researching things I know nothing about? I can spend hours reading and not writing. My NaNo word count has suffered greatly. I'm at a measly 9316. One of my fellow NaNoWriMo buddies (we meet weekly at Starbuckies) said I shouldn't do the research and just get the story down first. I find that hard to do! I'm a natural fact checker and there was so much I didn't know about witches and their craft. It was extremely interesting and sloowed me way down. 

However I do like my story and I know where I'm going with it so that's a plus. At least I have something I can work with. There's been other NaNos where I basically call it quits after struggling through the month because the story just didn't gel. 

Although I'm looking at the word count of 9316, I've written more than that on other story so the words have flowed... just scattered. 

How's your NaNoWriMo? Did you ace it? Do you do any research while working on your story? 

Are you celebrating tonight?  Go NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo Begins!

 It's time to start NaNoWriMo! Yay! 

Are you ready to write the next great 50,000 words of genius? 

It's okay if you're not. Just fire up that old computer/tablet/writing instrument and just write.  Yes, that's the way to do it. 

The best way to start NaNo when you have no idea what to write is to just write something. Don't judge whether its good or bad, just get it down. You can edit/fix after you got those 50,000 down. 

If you have a story idea then you're ahead of most in the game. There's a lot of people who have no idea what to write and they are almost ready to give up before they start. 

Please don't give up! You can do it!

Without an idea the advice to "just write" can still be intimidating. So, what to do? Here's some ways to get started; 

1. Google writing prompts. These are brief story starter ideas that can spark your imagination. You can also google these in your favorite genre. Love romances (the biggest industry in publishing) then put into the search engine; Romance Story Prompts. Sci-fi? Historical? Horror? Erotica? It's all there somewhere on the web. 

2. Ask yourself "What if" and then let your imagination go. What if a man has a body in his trunk? What if he get's back ended and the trunk pops open? What if a woman accepts a date with a man then discovers his best friend is the man who is the father of her kid - and she never told him he was the father? What if a space alien landed in your back yard. He's hurt. Do you nurse him back to health or call the cops? What if you go out for a walk at night and are bitten by a vampire? Werewolf? What if you discover your mother is witch? 

3. Get a book off your self. Close your eyes, open to a random page and point. That sentence is the first sentence of your novel. (Yes, this one is a big challenge. Are you up for it?)

4. Find a piece of artwork. Either in your home or store or anywhere you happen to be. Stare at it and then write about what's next for that picture? Is it a picture of a house? (I have Thomas Kincade pics here) Who lives in that house? What if something happened there? Ghosts? Did the in-laws move in? Did the woman who lives there find a strange animal and raises it only to find out it's a baby dinosaur? 

5. What if you were an alien. What would your impressions of the earth be when you landed. What if you were a time traveler? Would you go forward or back in time and what would you find? 

Remember stories are everywhere. Set your imagination loose and find those story lines that are uniquely yours. It's all good. 

Happy NaNoWriMo! You got this!