Hello everyone!

October has been a lovely, but full month. School, of course, is always there to keep me busy along with my writing goals.

This month I’m going to start making the transition towards a professional newsletter, writing more for my ideal reader. As my first subscribers, you will be my test subjects to see what’s good and what isn’t. (: Hold on tight…

NaNoWriMo

You may be wondering, what is NaNoWriMo? Well, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.

NaNoWriMo started in 1999 when Chris Baty gathered a group of 20 other people to write an entire book in one month. (wikipedia.org)

Over the years, the challenge has become a bit more organized. Every November millions of writers answer the call to write 50,000 words on a new project in 30 days, connected by the official NaNoWriMo website.

Wow, right? And before you ask, no, I’m not doing the full 50,000 words.

I would love to try it sometime, but at the moment it’s too much for me. I think it’s more important for me to avoid burnout and unnecessary stress than reach 50,000 this month.

Instead, I am doing a half NaNoWriMo. (No that’s not an official term, but it should be. Half marathons are a thing, why can’t this?) I’m aiming for 25,000 words which is still more than double my usual word count every month.

The first four days have been pretty great! I’ve gotten up earlier than normal when the house is calm and quiet (a rare occurrence) and gotten in my words before school. Let’s hope I can keep going strong until the end.

Behind the Scenes: My Outlining Process

For the first story I ever wrote, I didn’t even try to outline. If you had asked me if I had an outline, I probably would have said, “A what?” Needless to say, that story had major plot holes.

The second story I wrote had an outline… kind of.

This is a picture of the outline I made for my second story:

As you can see, it’s pretty messy and not very detailed.

Then, I discovered “Save the Cat! Writes a Novel” by Jessica Brody. It completely changed the way I outline. She divides stories into 15 basic plot points. Some examples are the Catalyst: the big event that kicks the story into motion and the Finale: the moment when the main character gathers their allies and defeats the villan.

I’ve used this method on several of my stories since then and it works miracles.

So, of course, I used it on my latest project: The Phoenix Pendant.

Here is a picture of it in action using trello.com:

Though Trello is meant to organize teammates and projects for business, I find it very helpful for outlining. I can easily move around scenes and use color coded labels to help keep it somewhat understandable. I also like to add pictures to help me better visualize the “feel” of the story.

Upcoming short story release

Several months ago I wrote a short story, but when I finished it, I didn’t really do anything with it. It’s been collecting dust ever since.

Since I’ve started this newsletter, I’ve been wanting a piece of writing that I could share with you all as soon as possible.

Then I remembered. I have a short story already written, all I have to do is edit it.

Make sure to open my December newsletter for the release of my middle grade short story:

The Second Place Winner

Cue the confetti and fireworks!

Quick October writing progress update

• Finished outlining The Phoenix Pendant

• Finished writing Trapped - A Rapunzel Retelling

• Started editing Light Turned to Darkness

• Finished draft #4 of Thawed - A Snow Queen Retelling

To learn about these projects read this post.

Thank you so much for reading!

I hope you enjoyed learning about NaNoWriMo and my outlining process. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a note on the website that corresponds with the Introverted Writer. I’d love to hear from you!

If you know anyone else who would enjoy this newsletter, please let them know.

Have a great week!

See you next month,

Abby Henderson

P.S. Remember to open my email next month for the release of my new short story: The Second Place Winner!