SOC #37: Disregarding the plan (NaNo Prep)

Most authors who are going to participate in this years NaNoWriMo at this moment, I'm sure, are writing an outline for their novel on paper. In a way, they sketch out a schematic for how the novel is going to be structured. Some do things like write down what will happen in each chapter, maybe how long the chapter will be. Some are writing a characters history, the way they carry themselves, if they have any particular habit or twitch, their motivations and personal desires that push the novel's plot along at a certain pace etc. etc. This makes the writers feel comfortable, and ready to take on the major feat of writing fifty thousand words in the span of just one month. What I've done so far is come up with the title, names of two of the main characters, written down song lyrics from two of my favorite musicians for inspiration, and some research concerning a subject matter that the novel's plot is going to revolve around. And that's about all I'm doing for my NaNo Prep. I know it's a little unusual, but I keep an outline in my head. I tried writing an outline for my first novel "Rosemary and Despair" but I never completed it. For me, it just felt like a waste of my time -- I'm not saying others shouldn't do it, mind you, but it just wasn't for me. After a few false starts of the book, I found the voice I was seeking, and simply wrote the novel in a span of a few months. Now, a lot of what made it into the story I didn't plan on putting in beforehand, which I felt very happy about. Last year's NaNoWriMo, when I was writing "The Crazy between Us," I had no fucking idea where the story was going. The thing about my experience with NaNoWriMo 2015 was I started eight days late, because I had just learned about the yearly event. It was crazy for me. I said to myself, "I want to do this. NOW!" So I gave myself the challenge of trying to make it to fifty thousand words in just twenty-two days with only one idea in my head. The idea was: "Guy gets indicted as an accessory to mass shooting simply for being the only subscriber to the shooter's YouTube channel." And I already had the title "The Crazy between Us" in my mind for months, but I didn't have a story for it, until finding out about NaNoWriMo sparked the idea that became my second novel. As I think about it, only one word comes to mind, "Amazing." Now, in those twenty-two days I wrote almost thirty-five thousand words, the most I have ever written in such a short time. I fucking shocked myself! And I did it without an outline, without planning ahead. I had no idea what the character's names were until I wrote them down as I was writing the novel, I didn't know the story was going to be as funny as it came out to be, and most of all, I had no fucking clue how the book was going to end. To tell you the truth, I realized what the ending was at the halfway point of the novel, and it surprised me. I finished writing a scene, and I said to myself, "No fucking way. I can't believe it, and I can't change it." Here's how I do things as I writer: there's an idea in my mind of how the story is going to be played out, and if I can remember how, and write it into the novel, then it was worth remembering; if I forget about something I had planned to write into a chapter, or scene, or sometimes including a character, then it wasn't worth remembering. There was a character that was suppose to be in "The 11 Year Lapse" at the end of the third chapter "Tale of Sugar Cocaine" but I forgot about him, like he wasn't needed, or worth it, which may suck, but fuck it -- it's beyond my control sometimes. There are two things I live by as an artist -- though it may sound pretentious, I don't give a shit, ambition creates passion and soul, and hardens the meek -- I don't want an outline to control what I write, and if characters in my short stories or novels do what I don't want them to do, then so be it. A lot of things in life are beyond your control, and we all have to live with it.