Adara VS October 2022
In today’s video I go over my Preptober activities, and how I’m approaching NaNoWriMo.
Visual Description:
Opening scene is Adara sat on a settee holding her autumn themed series bible. It moves onto Adara cutting and sticking large plot spreadsheets together. A green notebook is opened and Adara writes her times for the month in it then sticks gold stars in it.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to The Canopy! In today's video: Adara versus October - plotting, plotting, and gone.
A quick recap of this month. It started out quite strong. I have been trying to transfer all of my planning from my novel planning notebook (see the previous videos) onto digital, so on to a spreadsheet - which I did. I've transferred all the plot beats onto a spreadsheet now, and I've been trying from that to work out all of the chapters the chapter breakdowns that I've been trying to do, and this is what I've come up with.
First things first, I had to come up with a timeline. Yes, when you print out spreadsheets you have to sellotape them together and cut them out to make them like that. It's the whole thing. But this is the bigger spreadsheet overall of the plots with the kind of a breakdown of the chapters, kind of like an overlap. Technically I do have this as a starting point if I wanted to start NaNoWriMo tomorrow, but I would prefer to get a bit more details down I.E locations, dates, spreadsheets, bullet points... for every chapter, very specifically onto Scrivener, onto those files, and that's taking a while. I've made a start, but this is what I'm using as a basis.
So it starts over here with the basics of the Save the Cat, and it's also got some gaps in for where the Three-act Structure plot beats go in, because they all overlap quite nicely. Then we move on to our first main character, and our second main character, and as I'm going through specifically for the chapter by chapter breakdowns, I'm finding that the Three-act Structure is working very well.
Now, like I said I started incredibly strong, and I need to go back to my... to my series bible here, to get some details: specifics on different characters, their background, the layout of the world... just before I make a start. I already know I have some character names I'm going to have to make up as I go through, but being dual POV has really taken me by surprise, but anyway! On with that, it's that time again where I am going to write up all the time I've worked this month with gold stars now.
Like I said, I started quite strongly this month. I'm just looking over here towards a spreadsheet that I've got. There we go... Where I've tracked all the camps from my sessions. So normally I work in about 15-20 minutes, sometimes I have a giant run of activity in a day, but even then it's kind of broken down, maybe up into half hour chunks, but most of the time I work in 15 to 20 minute sessions, and my goal this month was to finish all of this chapter outline, ready for starting NaNoWriMo. So I had set myself a goal: for every 20 minutes worked I would give myself one gold star and as usual, then for every 10 gold stars I would earn myself the right to buy myself a brand new book at the end of the month. I did fairly strong looking down at this, with some 15... 15... 20 minutes... 20 minute sessions... Those are quite usual for me. Then I have a giant burst of activity when I really get to grips with my plot and what's happening, especially between the two.
Finishing my timeline really allowed me to have a very very big burst of creation. I could then fit everything in logically around moon phases (my story involves werewolves), have characters who are finishing up final School exams as well and trying to fit all that in with the school seasons was quite logistically tough to continue from book one.
I have a bunch of queries out at the moment still waiting to come back and at this point it's a bit of a waiting game, but I have also tentatively - I say tentatively - been looking at costs for self-publishing. Now the problem potentially with that is if I want a self-publish I'm going to want to do it well, and I mean like, very VERY well, to a very high standard. To the point where you can pick up a book and not realize it's self-published at all. Having there been no kind of gatekeepers to self-publishing is quite freeing, and I think for something like mine which is genre fusing essentially, with multiple genres where I think traditional publishing would struggle to market, that I think it would find a home a lot more easily in Indy. But at the same time with there being no gatekeepers you can fall foul to very quickly putting something out there that might be slightly inferior, instead of if you'd spend a bit longer on it and maybe invested a bit more in a cover designer, things like that. So if I were going to go down the self-publishing route, I would want to do that and do that well.
Also accessibility I am very very big about accessibility, so at the very least I would be looking into Google's version of AI voiced audio books. I tend to listen to fan fictions and I listen to audio books. It's one of my primary ways of digesting content, is through audio. I think their ability - Google's ability - to now create audiobooks is absolutely fantastic for people like me who have not a lot of energy going on, but also other than that as well as the regular - you know, paper copy - I would also be looking specifically to create a large print book. I think the large print is massively underserved. Yes you can, you know, say to anyone, 'okay well you know, here he has an e-book you can change the font size of that you know,' but it's not the same as just being able to then have access to an actual physical book. So I've been looking into that as well most places, like for example on Fiverr and things, where you can hire someone to do those things. It's not necessarily what their first consideration is to, because large print books the text tends to take up more space on the page, the covers and the dimensions are going to be slightly larger, so that's something specific that I would have to look into. But if I were going to go Indy then if I'm going to have all that control, I would do that all the way accessibility. All the way for as many options as I could, and that would be costly, but that's enough about book one.
I'm at the point now of making a choice. At the beginning of the year I said my goal was to finish book one and to write the outline for book two, so that if ever book one would be picked up by an agent then I would have book two ready to start writing if there was interest. I'm at the point now where I still don't have that interest, but nevertheless, I think it's good to march on with book two. I think having a backlog is a very very good thing, so how did I get on?
Let's start filling... filling this out. So we have the 1st of October, which was a Saturday, and nothing. And number two, let's see, the Sunday I did 15 minutes, then 15. 20. 20. And then I took the equivalent of a midweek weekend off. I can't exactly remember what was happening on some of these days but it's fine. I don't think you have to work on your novel every day as long as you are kind of thinking about it. As long as you don't give up then you keep coming back to it, then a hiatus is perfectly fine for any reason. There might have been any number of reasons. I think some of those were actually days where there were hospital trips involved... that's making sense. I remember there was a run where I had to spend like a weekend in the accident emergency ward with the with a household member.
That episode unfortunately has continued on, and on, and now it's in a bit of a tough position, but we'll get to that. I think that this will speak for itself - my timings - so that's 20. 40. 0... then we get to 30. 15. 45. 80. Yep, and this is where I really managed to break through the blockade.
Post editing Adara here. I have just remembered what that giant 420 minute epic breakthrough Saga was. I have on and off over the years been associated with a fantastic charity called Skimstone Arts, and they approached me for a piece of spoken word. Now, before I did novels I primarily wrote spoken word pieces and poetry, sometimes song lyrics, and I was asked along with Mr Spence to create a piece for a very special member of their charity who I've known for a fair few years. Probably 10... 11 years by now, who is going off to do his own stuff - kindly flying The Coop as it were - and he was called Magpie, and he was a good friend, a very good friend, and he still is. And together me and Mr Spence spent our time that day creating a piece for him called Corvid's Migration. This might be autistic hyper focus, I don't know. 420 minutes worked in total. I did work myself quite into the ground. That kind of carried on into the next day: 45 minutes of work. That was a fundamentally epic weekend, and then you can tell because the day after I crashed, and I only managed 13, so that's how my energy levels - I didn't manage my spoons (spoons being a metaphor for units of energy) - after that.
20. 20. 45. 30... and that brings us up to the 21st of October, and then the rest..
I've done nothing.
Yep. Absolutely nothing in terms of plotting. Reason for that: mainly medical. Not just me however - yes I had one or two of my own appointments, but mainly household members and trying to keep up with that. And in terms of having home visits every day, to the point where now said member is in hospital, and I've been trying to coordinate a lot of my energy on things, like trying to make basic meals, self-care, looking after the house. I'm rebuilding from scratch so...
That's where I'm at. I did not get all of my chapter breakdowns plotted as I wanted to. I had hoped to start NaNoWriMo. I know some people would take my spreadsheet and just run with that. I think I need to be more prepared so future me can sit down in a writing session and just say: okay, this is the chapter that I need to write. This is the goal specifically. I need to hit these bullet points, and they're done. They know where they are, they know what they're doing, and that's it.
I think I need that groundwork so I'm gonna need more time. I'm hoping to jump into the NaNoWriMo spirit with people, quite honestly still, so I don't know when I will get around to writing. It may be midway through the month. It honestly depends on how well I'm gonna manage with housework and my energy. I'm restarting my goal of taking a proper 10 minute, maybe even lie down, rests for 10 minutes every hour, just to try to manage that energy a bit more, and the kind of uptick than that and that extra energy that I'm spending, so my physiotherapy is now on hold as well, until I can try to build that back up.
Now is the favorite time: every 20 minutes I get a gold start, and onward with the celebrations of: what I am doing, and what I can do, and where I can push myself. I know for some people these things are quite redundant, things like little gold stars, but for me it is so rewarding to look back and see what I have actually done, so I'm going to give myself the gold stars, and then at the end I'm going to count up my total for how much I've done, and see how many stars I've got and (hypothetically using my old system) how much - how many - books I would have, counting some stars left over from last month as well of course. Speaking of, I'm not sure what system I'm going to use for counting NaNoWriMo or November this month, because usually for things like my first draft I would change my goal kind of from... well, normally I would set myself a word based goal for something like drafting, but after that it's for things like editing I've ended up just moving it to time based because it's more quality based really, as you're going.
Right, now let's try to count. I'm going to need to concentrate. That's 20. 40.
60...
and wouldn't you know it: 420, and that finishes the page, and moving on let's get a new sheet... 20.
40.
20.
20.
20.
40.
20... and there we go. That brings us up to that. Overall though, for the sheer amount of work I did before I crashed, that's quite something! So time to count the stars based off of some left over from last month. So we have...
45 Stars.
45 Stars! That's the equivalent of four new books to me. Four new books to me. And now let's count it. Let's add all this up... equals... sum... just getting my spreadsheet to do this maths for me...
That is a total of 893 minutes, which is divided by six... nope get your maths right... divided by 60. Just under 14 hours!
I'm quite happy with that. I think I'm gonna have to be flexible with next month as well to- for NaNoWriMo. I know I'm not going to start it, it may for me just be a plotting month, if I get the energy to even return to that.
So I'm going to start with having continuing my time-based goal because I am still planning. Originally I'd set myself the goal of: 'okay, if I can plot out three chapters every day - the specifics of them - then I will be done in time for NaNoWriMo,' and that crashed and burned as the medical emergencies piled up, and then my energy - is just had to be completely directed first of all from trying again to get myself up and running with basics... basics of life, but here we are and back again.
Hydration drink before I start... continue... so we're looking forward.
I don't know how this is going to play out, so I'm gonna give myself some flexibility. I am going to say that I am going to set myself my time-based tariff of 20 minutes worked is one gold star. After that if I get to the point though where I think that I can start writing then I will and I will be putting in a system of one star for every 500 Words written. I know NaNoWriMo was 1677, and even at that pace I likely wouldn't be able to finish my novel. My novel's projected around 80 000. NaNoWriMo is 50k.
Hopefully though, for a bit of community and a bit of outreach, I can link with other people online again... Reach out... Join live streams, even if I'm there for plotting just to get me back in the zone. I think that'll be helpful and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to seeing some returning characters, learning about these new main characters, seeing where they go, what their voices are going to turn out like, and I think that's positive.
How do I end this? Sorry. I'm running on between, like, five to six hours sleep for like, since Wednesday... recording this on... what day is it? I'm a bit all over the place right now, please excuse me... but that's fine. I'm getting used to it. Those hourly rests will help, and I'm building myself up from negative spoons again. But I think I'll get there as I continue to write my story, one day - or perhaps even one hour - at a time.
Credits:
Thumbnail and ending image created free using canva.com
Music credit 1: ending theme – Adara Spence Music
credit 2: Beloved - Sakura Girl https://soundcloud.com/sakuragirl_off...
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/3ji1zZc
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/omTgn4GQcKAMusic
Credit 3: Soon We'll Fly by Ghostrifter Official https://bit.ly/ghostrifter-sc
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA
3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/35reep7
