An Itinerant Mind

October Prep Again

My thoughts have turned to the October Prep for NaNoMoWrite.

I've enjoyed doing the prep the last two years, and am signed up for this year's October Prep month, though I do no intend to participate in NaNoMoWri. The first year I did take part, and wound up with just in excess of 50K words. Sadly after this I was thoroughly sick of the story, and hated most of what I had written. It has sat unfinished since.

Last year I knew I would not be able to take part because November was shaping up to be extremely busy at work - a prediction that proved correct, I was too exhausted to do much beyond collapse when I was done each day. The other reason was made very clear in the Prep stage. Those all important questions, "Who are you writing for?" "How are you going to market your product?" These made me realise that I am extremely unlikely to get anything published, having zero social media audience to sell to, even if I were to vanity publish, no one would even notice. Perhaps unduly pessimistic, though to my mind basically facing facts. SO I am writing for my own satisfaction, and producing 50K of insert expletive here is not what I want to do. At first the realisation depressed me. Now I realise the power of this, I only have myself to please. (Ignoring the fact that I'm a picky so-and-so.)

For this year's prep I am considering trying to develop an idea from scratch. The last two years I was working on existing ideas I had already given some thought to, and knew the main plot outline to. What I'm thinking of doing this year is picking a theme first (Day 16 in Prep), and go from there. I have also decided to set the story here and now, so it isn't going to be a fantasy, or historical setting. (I realise this might make writing a Western difficult, but I like a challenge!