Last year I discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time and became immediately obsessed with writing 50,000 words in one month. I'll be Nanoing again this year and fingers crossed I'll get a whole novel written in November.
There's no cheating allowed - which means in October I can't write a word towards my story, but I can start plotting and planning. My novel idea for this year:
Digging up Death
Dusty Fields is a palaeontologist student who has the gift of seeing how creatures died when she touches their remains. Handy for work, but something she keeps a secret from a judgemental world. Dusty avoids all but prehistoric death, until she comes across a colleague's body at her dig site and must help an infuriatingly dense detective solve the crime without revealing her 'gift'.
I've got the whole family joining in. Last year Matilda and Emily both wrote novellas (kids get to choose the wordcount they will aim for). This year we're trying to entice Tim to join in too. All through October our family has little workshops, this week we're focusing on plotting and story ideas.
Using John and Caitlin Mathews StoryWorld cards, we experimented with coming up with new story ideas. This pack of cards includes many fantasy and traditional fairytale characters, objects and settings along with a book to show different ways they could be used.
Our aim was to deal out two character cards, one object and one setting. Then we each came up with different ideas. You could also use tarot cards or print up archetype characters and draw them out of a hat to do this.
I can also use these cards in the classroom for creative writing, they are so beautiful the kids just love them. Here's a sample:
There were some pretty interesting ideas, including a murder mystery in fairyland! You can buddy me at NaNoWriMo and see what the month of crazy brings.
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