NaNoWriMo Begins!

Today is November 1st, the beginning of National Novel Writing Month! I've heard a lot about NaNoWriMo throughout the years, and this year, I have decided to participate! I've been waiting for it for weeks, thinking of what I'm going to write, then making character profiles, and then just making general notes about what I want to happen. I have started my novel, and completed my first 1,667 words this morning. Yay! I'm excited. I told the fiance that I'll be spending November working on this, and he has been really supportive about it. Even today when I told him I was stuck, I don't know what to write, he tried his best to give me ideas, even when he had no idea about the direction of the story.

Anyway, I've been gathering resources for the past month, and I thought I'd write a blog post on some of the things that I've found helpful.



The single, most helpful thing I've found is StoryBox. It appears to be a program that you pay for, but the creator offers the full program with no trial, no restrictions. So, you can use this software completely free, forever. At first I didn't think I needed this program, it's filled wit SO many features that I didn't think I'd need. But, as I started to outline my characters, locations and plot, there are just so many things that I don't think I'd be able to live without now. I can upload photos of places, animals, layouts, floorplans, anything up into the file so that I don't forget about what places look like. I can completely list out everything about my characters. Especially helpful so I don't forget what side that scar is on. Left or right.  If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, you need this program. Or a similar one. I love it. (By the way, you can click on the photo to go to the Flickr page, where you can view in full size).

If you prefer an online based outline service, check out LitLift. You can create characters, settings, and items on there. The most useful thing for me is their character generator. I'm horrible at coming up with names, so I just tell the generator if I want a male or a female, and it pops out several names for me to choose from. I love this feature.

Also, for backup, I'm intending to upload to Dropbox. Through the years, I have lost many important files. Many that were hours, days or even weeks of work. For this novel which will require even more time than anything I've ever done before, I'm becoming a backup fiend. I have a little 4GB flash drive that I'll be using for this, as well as Dropbox. The cool thing about Dropbox is if you have multiple devices to work on, Dropbox syncs your work to all devices. I can work on my desktop computer, then leave the house and work where I left off at the mall from my phone.