NaNoWriMo, how about that book cover...

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.