NaNo planning

Only two more days before NaNo really kicks off. I've been doing some research in the last few days, which I should be wrapping up now that writing time draws near. By now, I know where the family has moved to, what the secondary characters are like and why Christopher collects frogs, for example. How? Like this:

• Writing down unanswered questions about my characters and story. Somehow, reviewing my notes or just thinking of these little unsolved problems usually makes an answer or solution pop up in my head.


• Sketching. Oh, how I wished I could actually sketch or draw decently... but I can't. I settled for a rough map of the family home.


• Talking to others. Some people have good input just by thinking out loud. Even if these elements don't end up literally in the story, they often put me on track for other ideas.


• Finding pictures of random people or items that remind me of my characters. Flickr or Google Images are great for this.


• Finding theme songs for the story or for specific characters. Could be either songs they would listen to, or songs that remind me of them.


• Wiki research on important story themes. For example, I have looked up information on autism, frogs, and schools the kids could go to. Sometimes this leads to dead-end tracks, but after a long while of ploughing through information, I found a few awesome links between subjects that are really helping me answer story questions. I bookmark good finds and take notes of resulting ideas.


• Keeping a notebook and pen beside my pillow at night. Good ideas seem to pop up around or after midnight, before I fall asleep. It would be a shame not to write them down immediately. This way, my novel is also the first thing I think about in the morning when I see the notebook from 10cms distance.

There's still some things I should sort out before I start the actual writing. One of them is immerge myself into schools. What classes does Storm take and for how many hours a week? What is Kody majoring in? I also need to think up some individual scenes and find a good starting point. I'm not over-planning though, to leave enough room for the actual fun of writing and seeing where the story goes.