I hadn’t meant to go ten days between posts but …. Right after I set up this blog I found out that a surgery I have been working on getting since February was going to happen this upcoming Wednesday(10/15). I’ve been rather busy with the 457 things on my pre-surgery to do list. But this is super exciting news and here’s why.
A) I get the surgery.
B) the surgery will be done before Nano.
C) I get ten days to recover in which someone else will care for my son, my house, and my dogs. The hubby is on his own. LOL
Ten days. I figure I should be functional for at least a week of that. One week. One whole week to research for Nano.
Why do I emphasize research so much. Well, I have a degree in history and if there is one thing a degree in history teaches you, it’s how to research. While my novels are fiction I like to base them on facts. Plus when I read something really entertaining it often sets up a scene or a character in my mind. For example I read about the code Queen Alexandras nurses had to follow and immediately this character came to mind. She’s young, inexperienced, and thinks that by following the rules to the letter she will be a superior nurse. So when my main character is lamenting the loss of her soldier this fellow nurse is stating the code verbatim. It will be a funny little scene when I actually write it.
This of course brings me to the plotters versus pantsers. What the heck am I talking about? There are two kinds of Nano folks in the very broadest of terms. Plotters create an outline of their entire novel prior to Nano. Sort of like the outline we had to do in Freshman English for the term paper we would eventually write. Exactly. For them, this works. They follow their outline and create scenes that they have painstakingly laid out in advance. Pantsers on the other hand, fly by the seat of their pants.
I am a Pantser. I have a general idea of my novel, where it will take place, and the main characters you will encounter. I may even have a few half formed secondary characters. A general story arc is usually bouncing around in my brain. And I research aspects of the novel. Location, time, etc. But I really have no idea until I sit down and start typing it up. And sometimes I don’t even start at the beginning. Shushhhh, Don’t tell.
My novel is created on Nanowrimo. The next two weeks will be all research all the time, well once the pain meds wear off anyway.
So here’s to the miracle of modern medicine.
T.A. Henry 