Nanowrimo time!

I'm sure most of you have heard of NaNoWriMo, but if not, it's short for National Novel Writing Month, and you can find out more about it here: website.

I'm participating for the 4th or 5th time this year (I can't actually remember when I started), but I'm hoping that this year will be the one where I succeed!

The big reason why I haven't made it to 50k in the past is that I get somewhere where I realise that I have to think about the plot more before I can carry on. And some plot things for me take a while to cook in my head. This year, I'm trying to do two things differently.

First, I've tried plan more before I start - more of the background information that won't necessarily make it on to the page, but nevertheless is important to know about the situations in the world of this story. (Of course, then I had an idea on Saturday about the antagonists that actually fits much better than what I'd originally been thinking, so I've lost a lot of my planning and story arc, but I'm sure I can get it back!)

Secondly, I'm going to try and be a bit more relaxed about putting things in that don't seem strictly necessary - I'm going to try and be flexible about when things happen, and random things popping up. The big one I can think of is flashbacks - a lot of important things for my main characters have happened just before the story starts. If I need to reach my word count one day, I'm thinking of adding in a flashback to certain key points in those events.

Are any of you doing Nano this year? What are your strategies, if you have any? Would you be interested in talking about our progress here on the blog as the month goes on?

If anyone wants to be 'buddies' on the nano site, my username is 'dragon-girl' - a leftover from my 16 year old self thinking it was an excellent and original pseudonym on the internet.

~Ailsa