Here’s the next instalment for NaNoWriMo plotters. Have fun!
11. Play with the word “needle.” How many different needles can you visualize? Put one or two of them in your character’s hands or just out of reach and see what happens—someone away from home for the first time sewing on a button, fearing a dentist’s needle, needles clacking while heads roll… Or have your character needled or needle someone else.
12. “I never start a novel until I’m satisfied with the title.” Ed McBain. Work on your title until it’s right. It’s the cup you are working to fill.
13. Look at your favourite CD cover. Hide everything but 1 square inch. What do you see?
14. Write an opening sentence in which something or someone falls. What happens when they get up–or don’t!
15. Turn off everything and try writing in silence or change your background sounds. Try jazz, blues, Benedictine monks, Mozart.
“When you are telling the story you are meant to tell, you are actually going to feel the truth of it, and in feeling that truth, your spirit is going to soar. When you are telling that story the way it needs to be told…you are going to feel that, too.” Elizabeth George.