gardenerjoy, I love the sound of your pesto ice cubes! Inspired. When I need to prepare meals in advance, I like to make several large batches of different soups and stews and then freeze it all in individual portions. They keep a while, taste great, and reheat very quickly. Actually, freezing is just great in general. I like to do the same thing with cut up fruits so that I always have small snacks and/or desserts on hand. Eating frozen fruit makes me feel like I'm getting away with something very naughty on the calorie front, for some reason.

Now that I've got part of my food prep plan figured out, it's off to do a bit more background research for my novel. My ideas are a bit vague at the moment, which is ever so slightly worrisome.

I'm in.
I joined last year and had to drop out at about day 20 with 23,000 words. I just couldn't keep up anymore.
This year I pulled a plot out of my :censored: at the start of October. I'm still trying to flesh it out on paper with a plotline. I haven't even thought it names yet, but that's okay because I'll use "Stand-in" names until I find one's that are just right. (I'm very very picky about my names)
I'm worried about my weight this month but only slightly as I have a very active job so I don't exercise much anyway. Getting fed is another issue altogether, my BF is demanind that I take part in NaNoWriMo so I demanded that he has to feed me and himself for the whole month, as I can't afford to take time off from the computer during this time.
I think I'll stock up on frozen meals @.@

:fr: I just decided today that I was going to even do this again so I have NOTHING so far. Better get to thinking up something or pulling out some old notes of inspiration. I can never stick to a plot line anyway because the story changes itself along the way so I figure it doesn't matter if I don't start without one..we'll see!

pokeycactus: welcome! Glad you're here!

Nienna: great idea about freezing soups and stews in individual portions. We haven't made our vegetarian chili yet this fall and it's about time!

Sakai: Yep, names are important and you may know more about what the perfect name is after you've written much of the story than you do now. Great plan to have BF do the cooking (and to have frozen meals stocked up in case that doesn't work as well as hoped!).

Purplefirefly: Yay! I'm glad you decided to join us. I think NaNo is great for the times when you need to write to find the idea.

My brother and I have been getting together most Wednesdays for several months to work on our ideas for NaNo. I hope we get together today because I really need some help with my plot!

I am a character driven writer and yesterday a great one walked into my head and I banged out a great plot idea (seed, it's always just a seed) and then came up with some general direction for chapters 1-7 in the middle of the night. I am tired today but excited...this is why I had to put fiction on the back burner to make a living with nonfiction stuff...fiction overtakes my brain and I can't resist running to make notes and telling everyone else to shut up, my character just came up with something good.

*sigh* this one has already taken up residence in my head and feels like an old friend who i desperately want to help, so I wish Nov. 1 was tomorrow....and my hubby is glad he's a truck driver and gets to leave home tonight :lol:

Folks, I am curious if you already have a plot in your heads for your novels or if you're going to start on day 1 by deciding on a plot then. (And no, I am not asking you to share your plots! LOL!)

I have a plot in my head. I honestly keep a little notebook in my dresser and whenever I have an idea that I think would be neat for a book I write it down. I am going to look through there and choose one of those as the plot for this novel.

I want to do it this year! I missed it last year and this year I want to get my writing mojo back because then I have to write a thesis and I won't have time for this... :)

Purplefirefly: yay for characters walking in at just the right moment!

CourtneyDaisey: this will be my third NaNo and I have done progressively more preparing and plotting for each one. But lots of people start on November 1 with nothing or the merest glimmer of an idea. So, either way can work!

Rana: NaNo should be good practice for getting the words out quickly. Something you'll be able to use when drafting your thesis.

During my meeting with my brother last night, I fleshed out my plot a bit more. My goal is to have a list of a hundred scenes by November 1. I'm up to 53, so I have a ways to go and might not make it, but it's motivating me to keep thinking about things.

I have a plot, but I let my characters determine things so what I plot in the beginning never comes out exactly in the end. Things will change, but I at least have a good idea of the basic storyline. I have rough sketches of what will happen in the first 7 chapters, after that I'll be winging it. Really, beyond that I will be wasting my time as by then the characters will take over and things will be different anyway!

Purplefirefly: That sounds like plenty to start NaNo with!

Today I'm going to try to work out a food plan for NaNo -- something where I have the virtually the same breakfasts, lunches, and snacks every day and the same dinners week to week -- Tuesday is homemade pizza, Sunday is grilled chicken, etc. I hope that will help streamline shopping and food prep in November.

Originally Posted by gardenerjoy:

Today I'm going to try to work out a food plan for NaNo -- something where I have the virtually the same breakfasts, lunches, and snacks every day and the same dinners week to week -- Tuesday is homemade pizza, Sunday is grilled chicken, etc. I hope that will help streamline shopping and food prep in November.

This is a really good idea. I think I will try the same thing.

Purplefirefly: Hope it works for you!

My planning went well yesterday. Today I bought a lot of stuff at the Farmers Market. Most of it is too fresh to last until November, but I bought a bag of "seconds" apples and will make applesauce today, freezing some of it to use in November.

I know I'm not cut out for NaNo, or maybe I'm just a pansy; but one of my bosses at the library I work at attempts it every year, and she's my hero :D I have school to focus on in Novembers, too. Excuses, excuses.

But one site that's been helping me write a lot more (19,000 words in 23 days! It's unprecidented for me!) is 750words dot com. The set-up is really simple--write 750 words a day, every day, and rack up points and winning streaks--and according to the blog, the owner is thinking about doing something special for people who hit 1,667 words a day? It might be worth checking out for motivation.

Hey all! ^_^ I love NaNo, I'll be doing it this year as well! If anyone has a NaNo account on nanowriomo.org, add me (account: Jadeon). This year I'll be attempting a psychological thriller, what genres is everyone else writing in?

Account: kaplods

writing in urban fantasy (or more accurately, suburban fantasy).

I've discovered a way to participate this year without having to start entirely new. I won't use any of my written material from last year, and instead I'm going to tell the story from a different character's viewpoint. After NaNoWriMo is over, I can either keep both story lines entirely separate (resulting in two novels covering the same events from different points of view) or incorporating them into a single novel after NaNoWriMo is over.

I'm going to avoid writing about the incidents/scenes I've already writtent so that it's technically all new.

I like the idea of ending up with two novels from different points of view. Possibly the Villain and Hero could even be switched in each book (each narrator being the hero of their own story and casting the other as the villain).

I read two romance novels once that did that. Each of the two books were written from the point-of-view of a pair of sisters. In each book the other sister was the villain.

I also read a short story version of Snow White in which Snow White was the evil one (a vampire) and the stepmother was the hero.



Now I only have to wait 8 days to start the actual writing. I could work on the "old" version, but it would mean more scenes to avoid writing from the new perspective. Maybe I'll do some more plot work. I was really excited today because I not only did well on the plot outline, I even worked out three distinct subplots that mesh really well with the story line. Subplots and foreshadowing usually don't come easily to me, and when I've tried to write them in the past, they've been (or seemed to me) pretty lame.