Lady Falcon Travelers

Now that we finally caught up with all our orders and new ones going out the door on schedule, YAY, I decided I would this year have time to participate in NaNoWriMo. Obviously that meant I needed a new notebook. The perfect excuse to finally make the B6 size I've been wanting for quite some time now.

 

It was so hard to choose a color, because I wanted a color I didn't have yet, but I also wanted it to look a bit rugged and Indiana Jones-y... So I went with #7 Dark Brown. But I'm still a bit on the fence about the color, but that probably has more to do with the fact that it is still new and hasn't come to life yet.

So Yesterday evening I spend my time setting up my writerly notebook. First I needed a NaNoWriMo insert obviously, so I created one for 2017 in B6 ISO. You can find it as a freebee with the free printables.

I also made a tiny tag to represent my attitude towards writing. One that would go well with the tag on my personal planner ... DON'T PANIC

And spend the rest of the evening fussing over it and setting it up. Printed the inserts for it and decorated it all a bit.

I added a tiny notepad in one of the front pockets and perforated the pages so I can tear them out. I will use this for random notes that pop into my mind.

 Not sure how that'll work yet, but I'm sure it'll come in handy.

Next up is my NaNoWriMo insert, which I printed on lightweight paper.

Which does have a bit of ghosting as you can see here on the monthly overview page. I've left lot's of room to write down events and tasks for this month.

The rest of the insert is filled with grid pages and an inspirational quote on the right hand page. Here I can write the story, or ideas about the story, or draw diagrams with the story line. I think the grid is versatile enough to support all that.

The last page. of course, should be a word count tracker and the NaNoWriMo pledge, looking forward to filling that page =)

Obviously 1 insert is never enough, so I added a folder and 2 more inserts.

The folder is still empty, but I expect it'll fill up over the course of the next few weeks of October and November. I'm not sure yet if I will add pen-loops or not, so I left those off for the time being.

I added a dot-grid bullet journal, because I plan on taking a few writing classes online and I think this will be the perfect insert to keep all my notes about writing in one place.

The last insert is a lined 120 page lightweight insert, which really is there in case my NaNoWriMo insert flows over, so story and story ideas. Still need to work that out, but I'm sure everything will find a place in the next few weeks and it'll be fully setup by the time November comes around.

I haven't written a word in it yet, but I'm already in love. The size is just perfect for writing.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you participate in NaNoWriMo, good luck to you on writing those 50,000 words =)

xoxo Monique

 

With me essentialy being a discovery writer, also described as "seat of my pants" writer (in short, a pantser), or a gardener (as opposed to, respectively, an outliner, a planner, or an architect), I'm not entirely sure how I should prepare for the upcoming month. As I told you last time, I made an inspirational booklet and downloaded Scrivener. Since then I also adapted the highschool workbook for the young writers into a Traveler's Notebook format, so my daughter could take it with her in her TN. That took some time, but was fun to do. They are nice to read and use even if you're not in high school. I made it available in my dropbox folder (you can find the link to the dropbox on my Midori TN free inserts page). I played a little with Scrivener and, to be honest, I am impressed, so I'm keeping it. Watched some video's about outlining and prepping for NaNoWriMo (for instance Kaytastic's channel for the writing point of view and Ellen Brock's channel for the editor's point of view) and tried to implement some outlining by making chapters and character sheets in Scrivener (some great ones for Scrivener you can find here on Caroline Norrington's site). After which I came to a full stop. My brain freezes up when I look at all those questions and prompts. All I can do is look at them in agony and despair. I can hear my mind coming to a screeching halt, "That much? What? Why?". It would appear that this is just not how my brain works. I know by now, I can write a story, I can create characters that come to life in the readers mind and build a plot that keeps people reading. Last year I did no prepping whatsoever, I only decided to step in halfway the first week. Did some quick brainstorm sessions on some scrap pieces of paper folded into my Traveler's Notebook and just started writing. Troughout the month I continued these quick brainstorms every day. Always in pen to paper and always barely readable. In essence they were only there to trigger images in my mind. Writing to me is translating those images into words. I like to let the story unfold before my eyes. It's like reading a book. So how then to prep for NaNoWriMo, when I'm not going to outline anything. This question had been haunting me for a few days, when I noticed a tiny thing on the NaNoWriMo site. "NaNo Stats show: Uploading a novel cover increases your chance of winning by 60%" Right, so that should be right up my alley, make a novel cover! It's prepping, it's visual, it's brainstorming and I get to play with all kinds of media! I can do that! Therefore that's what I'm going to be doing next week running up to NaNovember. I think it'll be fun. I already made a mood board on pinterest with some old school SCI-FI covers, collected some fonts I'd like to use and searched for some tutorials on how to make a novel cover. Now all I need to do is bring out the paints and make a mess. If you're doing NaNoWriMo, what are you doing to get ready for it? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear it =) Have a lovely weekend.

Joining the NaNoWriMo fun again this year and this time I decided to come prepared to the battlefield, so that, by the time november first comes along, I can hit the road running... Now I'm not sure if I'm going to accomplish that, but I am at least going to give it a shot. First of all I felt I needed a notebook, since NaNoWriMo is writing, ergo pen and paper... So I designed an inspirational booklet to accompany me throughout the month, for notes, for inspiration, for wordcounts and journaling about anything NaNo related (or not...). I made the booklet freely available via my dropbox (the link to which you can find here). I also made a Fieldnotes sized version (also available in my dropbox), but since I'm going to tackle this with my Regular sized Traveler's Notebook, I made the Regular size for me ;-) Even though I promised myself I would only start decorating in November... I'm afraid I couldn't help myself...just a little bit... and no, I'm not going to Write About Dragons, though I did get lots of information and inspiration from their YouTube channel. I used the free logo from the NaNoWriMo website for this years participants to add some color and NaNo personality to the booklet. Actualy I used the NaNoWriMo logo through-out the booklet to keep it on theme. I designed it, with an overview of the month in the beginning, so you can add your NaNo appointments, your write-ins and such... Followed by the, oh so, important "Pledge" page, because as they say on the NaNoWriMo website, "Intention is everything". You can add your intentions here and write a little about the book you want to write. The rest of the booklet consists of two pages a day for the whole NaNo month, with some prompts, a word count box and lots of writing related quotes to keep you inspired. The last page of the booklet is the summary page, where you can keep track of your progress and, well, the quote that says it all. So I have begun...now for the rest.... Next step would be to actualy think about what I am going to write... and obviously, since procrastination is my middel name (well it could be)..., I decided I needed something other than word to do my actual novel writing with. I heard so many good stories about Scrivener so I downloaded it, installed it, imported last year's story into it and started my 30 day trial. After which I will decide if I'm going to continue with it....or fall back to my initial setup....just plain writing in word. So far so good, I'm ready, let the writing commence. I wish you all a lovely week. Want to join NaNoWriMo for november 2014, here's the link to the website.