NaNoWriMo 2010 begins for the west coast in less than half an hour, and I’m about as prepared as I’ll ever be.
I’ve spent that last week or so rereading Pawsgaard, taking copious notes, and fixing little typos here and there (no changes to the story, just minor editing). Those changes have been uploaded online as of a few minutes ago. There are a few things that have come up that will need to be reflected in my outline for this year’s novel, Hester and the Kookaburra King.
For reference, I have a 110 scene outline written out, of which I have 90% confidence (there is plenty of room for details to be fleshed out as I go, and a little room for rearranging should something turn out to just not make sense). It’s vague enough to be flexible, yet with enough plot structure that I won’t get too lost on my journey (a technique I’ve developed over the last couple years to improve my writing).
This year I’m again writing primarily on my ASUS 1000HA eeePC netbook, now running Ubuntu 10.10, with a new 32GB SSD, and a 14+ hour battery. If necessary I may do some work on my desktop, with its luscious twin 22″ 1080p displays.
FocusWriter is my text editor of choice, alongside the venerable gEdit for my outline, and TiddlyWiki for my world notes on Guineawick. I’m using Dropbox to keep my files in sync with my desktop, and will be relying on a series of backup systems to keep my data loss paranoia to a minimum.
Let the novel writing adventure begin again!
/jon
Jon Thysell 