(Re)Building Lara with Polyvore

I'm going to try this one out for a week! We'll see how well I like it :D

Meanwhile, I have been distracted by Lookbook and Polyvore...

It can be fun to create characters' outfits on Polyvore. Mind, all the branding makes these items far more expensive than my High School student characters in Wished Awry would actually wear...but the style is very Lara.

Lara by dreamca01 featuring vintage style tees

How does this help build a character?

I am not the best at description. I barrel into fight scenes, I draw conversations on longer than they need to be--and have discovered that I use these devices as a crutch.

So now that i am sitting on a complete rough draft of this Urban (Ya?) Fantasy, I am back tracking. I am fleshing out the characters (again) because now that the draft is complete, they've had their say--and changed my plans. So back to the drawing board! Then to make certain the puzzle pieces fit :)

Oh, and btw--I think I'll try a few new templates, so feel free to comment and leave your votes!

NaNoWriMo

I did it. I signed up. I have been shifting back and forth between my epic fantasy and urban fantasy...with little progress on either. But because the latter has a simpler plot, I'm choosing it for my NaNoWriMo project.

No More False Starts

I've seriously had plenty of these in the last year. but over the course of the past week, I've begun gearing up. After all, in order to make a novel-in-a-month possible, there's a lot of prep work to do. Because I've chosen something I've been kicking around, I have relatively less world building than normal.

What I'm Doing Differently

I generally spend time thinking of characters. I go through false starts, world-building short stories that end up in various of incompletion, but advance my knowledge of world/characters and the many players in the plot.

Right now, I'm composing written character outlines/backgrounds. Usually this bit evolves with the writing process. But in attacking a novel in a month, I have to have all my cards out. If feels like I'm composing a cheat sheet. When the whole novel comes together over the next few weeks, it'll be more akin to arranging puzzle pieces than my usual creative flow. Feels a lot more practical, I'll give it that :P

If you want to see the character cheat sheets, I can post them :) Let me know if you're curious.

Who else is doing NaNoWriMo? If so...how is the novel prep process for the event different from your usual prep experience?