Writing Plans

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a writer and having a book published is my dream. Yet I never write. I have so many story ideas and I continue to come up with new ones. I develop the characters and the world and the plot but I will be lucky to write more than a couple of pages of anything.

This year I have decided to actually take my writing seriously for a change. I have set the goal of completing the first draft of a book. This may be too big a goal but by first draft I do mean an unreadable pile of garbage that simply gives me words to work with. A story set out from beginning to middle to end which I will likely almost completely rewrite before it even resembles the finished thing. I figure the hardest part will be getting the initial words down.

I have decided to do Camp NaNoWriMo in July this year. For those of you that don't know he original National Novel Writing Month takes place in November and the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Now, seeing as I have never sat down to write a book before I figure 50,000 words might be too high a goal. Camp NaNoWriMo, however, allows you to set your own goal so I have decided that 30,000 words is doable (hopefully as that is only 1000 a day) and I won't be at uni in July so hopefully I won't be too busy. Then, if the story isn't over, I will continue writing throughout summer with the aim of finishing the draft before going back to uni in September. I can then spend the semester rewriting it.

My goal in the meantime then is to pick a story to write (and stick to it). This is proving extremely difficult as every time I choose one I either remember a "better" story idea or I start to really think about it and start to notice too many flaws that will either make it difficult to write or will need too much time dedicated to fixing. Once I manage this though I am going to spend the rest of my time up until July outlining it. Beginning to end. Chapter by chapter. I am outlining Katytastic style and she has some great videos on this topic on her YouTube channel.

I am not sure how many posts about writing I will make but you can expect updates, especially in July.