Third time's a charm?
Oct. 15th, 2022 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deemoyzaActually, I'm not sure it is the third time... I think so, but there may have been other attempts. Anyway! I have decided, against every fiber of my better judgement, to give NaNoWriMo another go this year. Unofficially, at least. I won't be checking in on the NaNo website or anything, because that just makes me extremely nervous. But at least this year, I have something resembling a plan!
You see, I've written a whole two 50k+ stories in my life, and each of those had something in common: a comprehensive basis from which to work, including a chapter-by-chapter outline, character sketches, location/plot-point backgrounds, and in-universe ephemera like business names and mock adverts. While I allowed myself to tweak the story as necessary, my preparation gave me a good "skeleton" to fill out, and freed my creativity to focus on the plot, rather than scrambling to find a decent name for the character that just ambled on-scene.
Looking through my post on my WIPs, I think "Sprinkles and Suds" would be a nice, light-hearted story to focus intensely on for a month. (That was another problem I had with my previous NaNo attempts; I was trying to be "serious" and "literary," and I can only deal with that kind of stuff in small doses. Lesson learned.) I spent most of yesterday coming up with names and backstories and a little bit about the setting. I enjoyed it! It was the kind of low-stakes, low-stress imagining I haven't really let myself do for quite a while. It also sort of helps that I'm freely cherry-picking little details from "Special Order" to make my job a bit easier. ;) I'll probably keep posting tidbits of info here as I develop it, more for my own record-keeping than anything else, but for the first time ever, I think I'm actually looking forward to NaNo!
Record-keeping info bits under the cut, for everyone's sanity. :P
Setting: Luna Spring (former railroad town, now dependent on tourism)
Baker (Heroine): Tomasa "Tommie" Mendiaz
Bakery name: WildFlour
Bar owner (Eventual love interest): Flint Prescott (sickeningly masculine name, I know! ;) )
Bar name: Derailed Saloon (formerly Shaky Rails Saloon)
Other characters:
Rhiannon - Tommie's friend and owner of Sukie's Used and New Books
Sukie - Rhiannon's dog
Reggie Prescott - Flint's brother, co-owner of Derailed
Flo - Owner of Go With the FLO Health Food Store
Cecilia "Ceci" Palacio - Tommie's cousin
Currently unnamed bakery assistants
Luna Spring is a dusty desert city that grew around an underground spring and thrived on the railroad. But the spring has long dried up, and the only trains that rumble through are the freight trains at odd hours of the morning, and Luna Spring has learned to rely on tourism for its survival.
Both Tommie and Flint are native to the city, but Tommie's mother moved her family away after the death of Tommie's father, when Tommie was thirteen. It has been two years since Tommie returned and opened WildFlour, determined to honor her father's memory by finding success in their hometown.
Flint, on the other hand, has never left Luna Spring, instead following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps as (co-)owner of Derailed Saloon, renamed from Shaky Rails Saloon after his grandfather's death in a grim commentary on the state of the city's fortune.
Currently, downtown Luna Spring is undergoing an uneven revitalization, with twee and touristy shops sharing (competing for?) space with greasy spoons and city mainstays, and crumbling apartment buildings neighboring renovated upscale condos. The line between revitalization and gentrification is growing blurrier by the day, and the unpredictable economy gives no sign on whether the trend will be sustainable or not.
Points of interest in the story:
Click to enlarge
(template from the Mithril and Mages City Block Generator tool.)
Las Casitas Apartments takes up two plots. It's where Tommie spent her childhood, and she eventually moves back in, and finds out just how much her hometown has changed.
I promise this will all get more coherent the closer we get to November! XD
You see, I've written a whole two 50k+ stories in my life, and each of those had something in common: a comprehensive basis from which to work, including a chapter-by-chapter outline, character sketches, location/plot-point backgrounds, and in-universe ephemera like business names and mock adverts. While I allowed myself to tweak the story as necessary, my preparation gave me a good "skeleton" to fill out, and freed my creativity to focus on the plot, rather than scrambling to find a decent name for the character that just ambled on-scene.
Looking through my post on my WIPs, I think "Sprinkles and Suds" would be a nice, light-hearted story to focus intensely on for a month. (That was another problem I had with my previous NaNo attempts; I was trying to be "serious" and "literary," and I can only deal with that kind of stuff in small doses. Lesson learned.) I spent most of yesterday coming up with names and backstories and a little bit about the setting. I enjoyed it! It was the kind of low-stakes, low-stress imagining I haven't really let myself do for quite a while. It also sort of helps that I'm freely cherry-picking little details from "Special Order" to make my job a bit easier. ;) I'll probably keep posting tidbits of info here as I develop it, more for my own record-keeping than anything else, but for the first time ever, I think I'm actually looking forward to NaNo!
Record-keeping info bits under the cut, for everyone's sanity. :P
Setting: Luna Spring (former railroad town, now dependent on tourism)
Baker (Heroine): Tomasa "Tommie" Mendiaz
Bakery name: WildFlour
Bar owner (Eventual love interest): Flint Prescott (sickeningly masculine name, I know! ;) )
Bar name: Derailed Saloon (formerly Shaky Rails Saloon)
Other characters:
Rhiannon - Tommie's friend and owner of Sukie's Used and New Books
Sukie - Rhiannon's dog
Reggie Prescott - Flint's brother, co-owner of Derailed
Flo - Owner of Go With the FLO Health Food Store
Cecilia "Ceci" Palacio - Tommie's cousin
Currently unnamed bakery assistants
Luna Spring is a dusty desert city that grew around an underground spring and thrived on the railroad. But the spring has long dried up, and the only trains that rumble through are the freight trains at odd hours of the morning, and Luna Spring has learned to rely on tourism for its survival.
Both Tommie and Flint are native to the city, but Tommie's mother moved her family away after the death of Tommie's father, when Tommie was thirteen. It has been two years since Tommie returned and opened WildFlour, determined to honor her father's memory by finding success in their hometown.
Flint, on the other hand, has never left Luna Spring, instead following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps as (co-)owner of Derailed Saloon, renamed from Shaky Rails Saloon after his grandfather's death in a grim commentary on the state of the city's fortune.
Currently, downtown Luna Spring is undergoing an uneven revitalization, with twee and touristy shops sharing (competing for?) space with greasy spoons and city mainstays, and crumbling apartment buildings neighboring renovated upscale condos. The line between revitalization and gentrification is growing blurrier by the day, and the unpredictable economy gives no sign on whether the trend will be sustainable or not.
Click to enlarge
(template from the Mithril and Mages City Block Generator tool.)
Las Casitas Apartments takes up two plots. It's where Tommie spent her childhood, and she eventually moves back in, and finds out just how much her hometown has changed.
I promise this will all get more coherent the closer we get to November! XD
