#FirstDraft60 Day 21: Saturday Catch-Up & Review Day #amwriting #nanowrimo #nanoprep
As a reminder, Saturdays throughout this challenge are going to be our days to review what we’ve covered during the week, and to catch up on anything we fell behind with.
We had some big assignments this week, and some of you, like me, were still working to get caught up with previous weeks’ assignments, too. So it may be a really busy weekend for some of us! 😉
So let’s begin.
Part 1: Review of the Week
Here are all of the assignments from this past week. Click the day of the week to open that post in a new tab/window:
Monday (Day 16)
Assignments:
- Read the post “Inspiration vs. Perspiration.”
- Determine what your prep-work/writing schedule will be for each day for the remainder of the challenge (today through November 30, 2016).
- Create a calendar and write your writing schedule for every day remaining in the challenge on it.
- Share your plan/calendar.
Tuesday (Day 17)
Assignments:
- Determine what you want your final word-count to be for your completed first draft. Calculate your daily average needed to reach that goal.
- Determine how you will track your word-count progress.
- Decide if you want to track your writing-related time/projects.
Wednesday (Day 18)
Assignment:
- Think through possible challenges and obstacles that may come up between now and November 30 that may hinder you from meeting all of your goals. For each scenario, think through how you may handle it and how it might impact your writing time. What are you going to do when obstacles and challenges arise during this challenge?
Thursday (Day 19)
Assignments:
- Write out a brief sketch of your story idea—no more than a paragraph, maybe two. Is your premise plausible? Is it realistic without being predictable?
- Write out at least three main conflicts (plot points) that you know will happen in your story. Are they deep enough to sustain the story’s momentum by creating additional sub-conflicts that will move the plot forward? Are there enough problems facing your characters to keep readers’ interest?
- What books out on the market are similar to yours in genre, subject, theme, character? How does your premise position your book in the market? Now, what makes your premise unique? . . .
- What are the emotional stakes in your story premise? How do you want readers to react to your story—do you want to make them laugh? cry? cringe in horror? sit on the edge of their seats? Would you want to read this story if someone else had written it?
Friday (Day 20)
Assignments:
- Write out/map everything you know is going to and/or needs to happen in your story.
- Create a structured outline of your story, including all of the details you know at this point.
Part 2: Catch-Up, Update, and Brainstorm
Assignments for Saturday:
- Review everything you’ve done so far and catch-up with anything you couldn’t get to or couldn’t finish during the week.
- Update your Story Bible and Style Guide based on everything you came up with this week.
- Once you’ve caught up and have everything updated, do some “what if” brainstorming with your character information and backstories and see if you can come up with some additional ideas for either the characters themselves or for your story/plot. Have fun with this. And if you feel inspired to write some scenes, do it!
- Check in and let us know how you’re doing, what you’ve accomplished, and what you hope to achieve this weekend.
Above all else, have a great weekend!
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KayeDacus.com 
I’m all caught up on last week’s assignments and most of this week’s but have to do Day 19 & 20 assignments still. Working on those as soon as I’m done here. I hope to go and do some more writing on the scene I started since I think it will end up in my book – at least the first draft! lol
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Caught up mostly. Still working on the mind map. Haven’t slowed down today, and I thought it was going to be a working on story prep kind of day. But I’ve still got a few hours before bed.
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It’s 9:30 p.m. here and after several hours of playing with my new toy (Dragon NaturallySpeaking) and, naturally, cleaning my kitchen and bathroom as I get the zeal for only when procrastinating on writing assignments, I’m getting ready to dive in and start playing catch-up. Which means a very late night for me tonight. But that’s when I’m at my most creative, so hopefully I’ll make some good progress!
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It may not have been the best use of my writing time, but I just spent the last hour putting together this Excel worksheet:
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And just to make sure I had it cemented in my mind what needs to be finished (and so that I’m not tied to the computer for my to-do list):
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