Preparing for NaNoWrimo Part1- The Idea

As I mentioned in last week's post, NaNoWrimo is right around the corner. Despite saying that I wasn't going to participate, I changed my mind. Why did I change it so quickly? Sunday I was laying in bed being lazy, reading my Twitter feed, when someone tweeted something totally innocent. It had nothing to do with books, writing, stories or anything you would think it would, but just a random life observation. Those 140 characters (actually, it was less), gave me a whole book idea. It just wasn't any old book idea, it was something that I instantly needed to write...like right now. What perfect timing right?

I quickly sat up, grabbed my Moleskine (that is always by my bedside) and began to write the idea down before it slipped away into the abyss of great ideas (and trust me, I have a LOT of those floating around, lost). After i wrote down the basic idea, my mind still raced, trying to put it all together. My husband was in the next room, so I ran (yes I literally ran) to him and told him all about it. I wanted to make sure I wasn't nuts, that this could really work. The great part? He agreed!

Now comes the hard part, building a world, characters and plot around this basic idea, all before November 1st. That's what I'll be working on in the days to come, trying to get enough of a platform, so to speak, to know where I'm taking the story. The first few years I wrote for NaNo, as I mentioned before, I just ran with it. I didn't know what I was writing until I sat down for the first time in November. The last few I had a plan. It worked out so much better and my first draft was much improved because of it.

Be sure to get as much down about your story, even if it's something as simple as your main character being allergic to strawberries. You won't regret it!

If you want to be my writing buddy for NaNoWrimo this year, my user name is Seeker4.