I’m pretty excited now. I’ve just completed all the preparatory work for starting my NaNoWriMo novel next week. This is the first time I’ve put so much effort into my writing in — well, ever, to be precise.

The first thing I did was to put together a basic premise paragraph. I followed that with a paragraph on the climax of the story. Then topped it off with a paragraph explaining the conclusion. That nicely bookended the work I was beginning. It gave me a reference point for the start and the end, and the major conflict that would define the bulk of the story.

Next I put together some short descriptions for the main characters of the story. This involved writing out the background, motivations, and allegiances of all my creations.

I then set out outlining the novel chapter by chapter. I split each chapter into four to six sections, each focusing on different characters. I planned everything out, adding about two to three sentences per section to describe the focus of that particular part of the story. As I worked my way through the entire novel, I would constantly go back and revise the character descriptions as I changed elements of the story.

And now, it’s all planned out. Every step. It was a fairly organic process, but amazing to see it all come together and wrap up at the end. I’m now eager to actually begin writing the story and seeing all this planning come to a logical boiling point. I want to watch the creation take flight and see how much I deviate from the outline as the story progresses.

I see a mountain of work ahead for me, with no real hope of any kind of publishing deal at the end. I’m really just doing this to see if I can. Is this what it’s like for authors? An exhausting mountain of work that you tackle one foothill at a time, and hope that something you can proud of will be waiting for you at the day’s completion?