NaNo Archives - GoatKeepers Press

World building is part of planning any novel. This means doing some research. My planned NaNo novel called for some delicious book research.

Delicious?

One of the possible scenes in the novel will involve the main character doing some cooking, a simple Arab recipe. Except I don’t, or didn’t, know any simple Arab recipes.

Of course I could just do a search for such a recipe. What’s the fun of that? Finding a good cookbook to read or browse is much more fun.

I checked out “Arab Fairy Tale Feasts” by Karim Alrawi and Nahid Kazemi. This began my delicious book research.

My Plans

I had thought I would use a chicken recipe. This made it tempting to just look at those sections in the cookbook. I’m glad I didn’t succumb to this.

Instead I spent time enjoying the Arab Fairy tales. They each ended with a moral reminding me of Aesop’s Fables.

Each tale had the flavor of “The Thousand and One Nights” yet the familiarity of fairy tales I’d read long ago. The illustrations made the tales come alive, even though they were simple colored sketches.

New Plan

The chicken recipe idea got canceled. Instead I found a meatball with a honey glaze recipe. It’s fast to prepare and sounds delicious.

My main character will prepare a variation of this one as she will use a tomato sauce glaze, something the recipe notes tell me is another way to prepare the dish. One of the honey glaze ingredients called for would not be found in a regular kitchen not set up for Arab recipes.

That doesn’t mean I won’t try to make the original recipe. I’ve already tried out another recipe from this delicious book research, a lentil soup.

It would be great if the rest of my world building research was delicious book research too. Unfortunately it won’t be.

cover for "Broken Promises" by Karen GoatKeeper — Food is universal. Cooking can be relaxing or therapy or other things for the cook. In “Broken Promises” cooking helps Hazel cope with the death of her father.

The stores are full of holiday decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t bother with any of these. Instead I start with NaNo preparation in September.

What Is NaNo?

NaNo is National Novel Writing Month. It started as something of a dare between three men who talked about writing novels, but never did. They challenged each other to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November.

The challenge was fun. It was hard. Soon others wanted to give it a try.

Now NaNo is international with hundreds of thousands of people writing furiously for 30 days. The only prizes are some digital badges, a winner’s certificate and a rough draft for a novel. For anyone who loves to write, these are enough.

My NaNo preparation

This year is a bit different for me because of the ArtsRolla writing contest. Usually I spend September making up characters and plots, searching for one I want to pursue.

In October, I start creating lists of possible plot points, outlines of characters and descriptions of settings. I’m not what is called a plotter where every detail is fully developed and stated in the outline. And I’m not usually a pantser who takes an idea and just writes to see where it leads.

I fall on the spectrum between the two. Each novel moves me one way or the other, depending on the complexities of the plot. With “Dora’s Story”, I needed great outline details as there were several goat shows involved over more than one year with the contestants and their goats aging through the years. And Dora had a timeline too.

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper — When I started writing, I had a long list of cliff hangers. Many of them were never used. A few new ones occurred. The resulting novel is a wild romp of a story.

“Capri Capers” was closer to pantser. All I needed was a list of possible cliff hangers. That is, that’s all I needed for NaNo. Rewriting the novel required making a map and changing the story to fit the map.

For NaNo preparation this year

As I’ve gotten older, my novel ideas have moved from upper middle grade to adult to older adult this year. Lots of things change as you get older. What is it like to be old?

Only an older person can really write about this. A senior citizen was once young and can remember many of the issues a young person faces which may change forms, but not the underlying issues. However, a young person has never been old. There are so many considerations a young person can’t know even with interviews about what an older person feels both physically and mentally.

My first chapter is drafted and will be entered in ArtsRolla. I need a good working title. And then there is the outline of plot points, scenes and characters to write down so I don’t forget them before November when the novel draft will get written.