Despite a strong idea, a somewhat realized outline, and an opening chapter, I decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year.
I “won” NaNoWriMo in 2011 and 2012, but swore that after the chaos of last year’s 50,000 word, several short-story sprint, I wouldn’t start another big project until I had graduated. At one point I even said I’d do NaBloPoMo (these acroportmanteaunyms are getting a bit ridiculous) to change things up a little bit. Now, staring down the barrel of my final grad school semester, with lots of big plans for this blog and my other writing, dedicating an entire month to a project that will likely rot, untouched on my hard drive doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.
But I want to feel like I’m participating, sort of. So for all you other people NaNoing your little fingers off, here are links to some of my favorite writing and grammar related posts from the series “Craft and Draft.” I hope they can help you capture those coveted 1667 words each day and maybe nudge you the 50k word mark with some lilting grace.
Plotting, Structure, and Pre-writing:
Go Small or Go Home
Literary Smiterary
Plotting Progression
Sheet Music
The Write to Read
Idea-logical
Imagery and Metaphor
Metaphor Galore
Imagine All the Imagery
Grammar, Syntax, and Word Choice
Branching Out
The Diction Affliction
Frag. Ments.
Resumptives and Summatives and Appositives, oh my!
Parallelogrammar
I’ll take words that start with “Ad” for $2000, Alex
Grammar (with an “a”, not an “e”)
Characters and Dialogue
Character Counts
Dialognostics
Editing and Proofreading
The Editor is Dead, Long Live the Editor!
Fixing What ain’t Not Broke
The Proof is in the Reading
I’m also happy to answer any other questions about NaNo, NaNoing, having NaNo’d, or why I’m so obsessed with English grammar.
Ask away!