Novel90 Challenge | The Beginning

So, I decided to do the Novel90 Spring challenge this year and it started a couple of days ago. Here are my thoughts so far.

First, I should explain what Novel90 is.

Novel90 is a writing challenge/community that is designed to help you complete a novel in 90 days. There are livestreams, daily emails, and writing sprints all provided by those running it (some of the authors from AutoCrit). You choose a team (planner, pantser, plantser) and off you go. The 90 days started on Feb 1.

The timing for this worked out pretty well, as I just sent off my current WIP to my beta readers and need something else to focus on for potentially a month. And would you look at that! I need to work on book three! What a happy coincidence!

So, how were my first few days?

Day 1:

The challenge unfortunately started on a Sunday, which are days I generally don't do work, so we'll jump to day two.

Day 2:

For day 2, I went back and watched the replay of the kick-off video, which detailed the challenge and the resources they are providing, as well as how to 'win' at the challenge.

I also went over the information and planning I already had for book 3. This largely consisted of a brief collection of scenes from a while ago, as well as a Twine board that I use to kind of figure out the sequence of events. So, I guess you could say that is my initial rough outline.

Day 3 (today!):

Today I transferred the 'scenes' into a word document and made each a heading so I could navigate and move things around as necessary. Once that was finished with the scenes I already know that I want, I began to write little summaries for what should happen in each scene as well as other information that may become relevant at other parts of the book.

So, that was the first three days. According to the challenge kick-off, for plantsers (which is the team I decided to 'join') the first month is for planning, the second for writing, the third for editing. In theory that means that I'm perfectly in-line with their timeline.

The only problem?

I have no idea what else to add.

This book is the first time in a while that I don't already have what is essentially a complete draft in my head. That means I'm going to have to rediscover how I come up with all the rest of the story.

Time to do a bit of research and find some inspiration stories to study, so, there may be some story study videos and let's plays coming into being soon on my YouTube Channels (Main & Gaming). (Also, I do livestreams twice a week: a Write With Me on Wednesdays on the main and a let's play on Fridays on the gaming)

Time to get writing!

Why don't you join me?

Check out the trilogy page here.

Buy Book One here.

Join the challenge or check out the Summer one: Novel90