Well, I’ve added some plot points to my novel and my current count is 37 plot points. These are just the major plot points, so there’s a lot to fill in between them. Typically my novels are 50-51 plot points long, so I’m doing pretty good right now.
My Plot Cards:

I ran Natalya through the Mary Sue and Universal Mary Sue Test a while back and she’s an Anti Sue, so no worries there. I think that’s good. I do however need names for the other characters in the novel. Right now they are just named “friend” “Classmate” and so on. Though that’s minor in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve done a lot of research on body decomposition, but I still don’t really have the answer I was seeking… which… stinks. I did, however manage to be able to answer a call at the Yahoo Fantasy group about the body after death with the sites that I found with my research, so that worked out well.

Well, as a few of you know, we went to The Wilderness this weekend. It was a lot better than I thought it’d be and we spent a greater part of two days swimming, swimming (and did I say swimming?) in their THREE indoor waterparks. Naturally, Mr. Gideon just loved it all up. I think his favorite was the wave pool (one of the parks his a giant wave pool and another has a smaller one. He’d bounce in a tube along the waves.. giggling the whole time.) Another favorite of ours was the lazy river, which we went on a few times as a family, and then the day before Gideon and I went on it together without dad 3 more times. Then there was the hot tubs.. we all liked those. Gideon’d settle right in the hot tubs and play with the suds, lol. We even watched snow flurries in the sky from the hot tubs. Yes, it’s already snowed here this year – though it didn’t stick, thankfully.

Gideon also did a scavenger hunt there, played at the arcade, colored a trick or treat bag and made a sand bottle in the kid’s area. The crafts, unfortunately weren’t free, but he wanted to do them, and since the inlaws paid for the room and us even BEING there, we decided that $6 for crafts was not a bad deal. After all Gideon was GLEEFUL as he made them.

Gideon also was so excited to check out our two bedroom suite. Best of all was that we had a bunk bed in our room. Of course Mr. Gideon wanted the top bunk, and since there was a railing there we thought why not? He had such a BLAST up there. Below him was an adult sized bed that we slept on, so if he did fall out (unlikely as it was) he’d only hit our tummies, LOL. You can see a photo on the website of the front room of our suite… it’s listed as a 2 bedroom deluxe condo with fireplace. REALLY nice rooms.

I don’t have any photos, though as leaving the camera on a table by the pools, or in the room didn’t sit right with me, nor did not going in the water and taking photos all weekend.

I’ve also started work on my novel plot.. the half that just made itself apparent to me. I’ve added twelve new plot points (many of these will require over two thousand words each) as well as started research on body decomposition. I jotted a few notes down about motives for the type of killer I’m working for and looked into some other mechanics issues that I might have to smooth out with the novel and plot.

All in all an interesting weekend, for sure.

Originally posted on October 25, 2008 11:51 AM EDT

You know… why is it that we get these ideas at the last minute? I’ve been wanting to work on my plot for NaNo for a while now but the muse has been hiding.. and I’ve not had the time or energy to slap her with the idea stick. (My term for stalking her and making her talk, LOL)

Then today I thought hmm. How am I going to make the ending work? Well, I could do this… or this.. or… *light bulb moment* At that point there was no turning back. Did I mention that this was an infamous shower revelation? Yeah.. well, it was. I’ve learned that the shower revelations must be used.. they are the best ideas that usually make their way to my mind.

So, where do I stand now? Well, with one week to go I’ve just added a second story plot to what I have now, and my novel is now a sort of hybrid between Mystery and Suspense. It will utilize parallel running story lines – one Mystery, one Suspense… and somehow all tie together in alternating chapters (more than likely.) Crap.. I hope I can do this without ruining my original suspense plot.

Wherever you are muse… don’t leave me now.. I’m going to need you and Natalya more than ever.

Here’s some sites with great free to use Poser graphics. These work well with some editing for novel banners and covers.

It’s recommended that you download any images that you like as most of these sites are known to rotate and remove content on a fairly regular basis.

Outlaws Design

Lynn’s Design – FREE Membership needed

Dic Vic Barnes

Anita Lee Creations

Sensual Posers Graphics for personal use only.

Jenne’s Collection

Sweet Pea’s Tubes

Witch and cat from Sweet Pea’s Tubes

Lola’s Tubes

Graphic Allusions Free Archive- 5 Pages of Free Graphics

Sweet Dreams Poser Tubes – Three Pages humans (one nudes) and several pages of props from Poser

Ultimate Fantasy Designs Poser Tubes

Lassie Designs – Several pages of free Poser Tubes

Butterfly Wings Boutique

Vampi’s Art Poser Tubes

These files are downloaded form the sites as ZIP files and they come with transparent backgrounds. They are made to use in a graphic program such as photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and more. I use Paint Shop Pro (PSP) 7 for my graphics.

Do be sure to check each site’s terms and restrictions that they might have prior to using them. Some are okay with commercial useage of the graphics, some only allow them for personal use!

I’ve been told quite a few times how amazed others are at my novel organization. Have you ever wished you were more organized particularly when you are doing NaNoWriMo?

Well, if you’ve answered yes check out this site. Karen Wiesner, author of First Draft In 30 Days is guest blogging at Routines For Writers. She’s offering NaNoWriMo preparation tips that should help everyone gain more organization and ultimately help us through NaNoWriMo this year.

I worked on The Cat’s Last Meow today, while I didn’t write nearly as much as I had hoped to, I did manage to get some progress done – which is the first progress on it since February (so sad.)

The official count is 626 words today. Not too bad, though I’d have liked to at least get to an even thousand. Considering that I was too cold to do anything other than lie in bed for the majority of the day, I’d say that’s not too bad at all.

The current word count of the novel is: 17,402 words. There are exactly 25 plot points left to write and I need to elaborate on some of the ones I have written already.

For those who have done NaNoWriMo at least once before, have you considered adopting a newbie?

Adoption can enhance your NaNo experience, motivate you and more importantly offer guidance to someone completely new to NaNoWriMo. I never really was officially adopted last year, but a long time friend did offer support, pep talks, a ear to listen during the hard times and a kick in the pants for me. We would often check what each other’s word count was and if we fell behind we did our best to catch up to the other. In short, she really did adopt me. I know that if it wasn’t for her I would almost certainly would have quit NaNo less than a week before I won it. For me that was key and it was integral to my completion. I felt that it was almost my duty, so to speak to offer adopting someone this year – to pay it forward, so to speak.

So, what does one do when you adopt a newbie? Well, really you support them one on one. This could be in the forums, NaNomail or even on messenger or email if you feel so inclined. You can offer to help, lend an ear when they are in a slump and give them pep talks why they need to keep going for the goal. You can offer to do sprints, word wars and other things that help in getting to 50,000.

There is an adoption thread in the Horror & Thriller forum and one in the Newbie Forum.

As of today I’ve officially adopted one fellow Horror writer, well, a bit more satire than horror, but their plot seems interesting and fun. Here’s hoping that I can assist them in reaching the goal, as they are starting to become intimidated by the idea of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.

So, have you, or will you adopt a newbie or two? Or, are you a newbie yourself who would like to be adopted?

Do you have portions of your novel that you hate? Portions that you know you will delete in editing that are taking up vaulable word count space?

I know I do. This latest scene I’m writing will be thrown out. It seems such a waste to keep writing it when I know this.. but I’m kinda stuck with it. That is, unless I trash all 500+ words of it and lose that progress. I don’t think so. however, I loathe this section. I repeat. Loathe.

Here’s a trick to deal with these sections that you loathe and are tempted to outright delete. Take your text that you hate and turn it white. That’s right. Turn it WHITE. It will still be there and will still show on your word count checks, but it won’t be visible taunting you and tormenting you until you finally just give in and delete it.

Remember.. try at all costs to delete nothing. The more you delete the further away from your goal you will be!

Here’s another method that I’ve found to be very useful that utilizes a common household item: Index Cards.

I take my major plot points (I’d do them all, but I can’t seem to find a clip large enough to hold every plot point.) and write them on note cards. One plot point per card. This is actually a part of my plotting process, though once it comes time to actually write the novel I have my cards nearby. They are held with a large office clip – the ones with the butterfly style clips.

I turn each card to the back of the stack once I’ve written that plot point and keep it nearby so that I can see the next plot point that I am working the plot towards. I find that this saves rifling through pages in a notebook and takes up less space than an open notebook would. This is also a great way to see at a glance how far you have progressed into the plot.

Here’s my stack of plot cards for my major plot points for my current novel:

Here’s a tip that I used with so much success last year that I decided to do it again this year.

Post it notes are something that many of us already have in our house and they really can be helpful when keeping on top of your word counts. How much time do you spend trying to figure out where you should be for the day? I spend less than a minute and you can too.

Before NaNo started I took out my post it notes and a Sharpue pen. I opened up the word count chart in No Plot No Problem and began to write out one post it note for each day with the MINIMUM word count on it. This count is charted out to take the full 30 days to finish the 50,000 novel. If you have more than that congrats! You are ahead, if you have less then you are behind.

This is a nice way to silently keep you aware at all times where you stand in conjunction to making the goal.

Each day at midnight I pull out another of the sticky notes (I store them in my notebook) and place it on my computer. Sometimes if I am ahead I will pull out the one for the next day so I might see if I am one or more days ahead of where I should be.

Here’s the word count break down for a full 30 day period:

Day 1: 1,667

Day 2:  3,334

Day 3: 5,001

Day 4: 6,668

Day 5: 8,335

Day 6: 10,002

Day 7: 11,669

Day 8: 13,336

Day 9: 15,003

Day 10: 16,670

Day 11: 18,337

Day 12: 20,004

Day 13:  21,671

Day 14: 23,338

Day 15:  25,005

Day 16: 26,672

Day 17: 28,339

Day 18: 30,006

Day 19: 31,673

Day 20: 33,340

Day 21: 35,007

Day 22: 36,674

Day 23: 38,341

Day 24: 40,008

Day 25: 41,675

Day 26: 43,342

Day 27: 45,009

Day 28: 46,676

Day 29: 48,343

Day 30:  50,000

Here’s a shot of my computer today with the post it note word counts stuck to it.