Quest Guide Prep: Gwen
How Gwen Tolios is prepping for Novel Quest
Hello all!
I’m Gwen.
This is my first year as a Quest Guide, but I used to lead a NaNo region and am an active member of
. I’ll fully admit Gwen Tolios is a penname (one of three), because like Jenn I’m a little all over the place in what I write. My comfort zone is SFF short stories, but I have also done: travelogue, nonfiction, erotica, contemporary literary drama, and sapphic romance. Oh, and a lot of fanfic. (Penname #4, if we’re being honest.)I’m a pantser. I tend to not plan my projects, launching myself into a new story with a blank page and blank mind. But for Novel Quest this year I don’t want to launch something new. My author to-do list is at least 20 items long, and what I want to do this November is slowly whittle that down.
Which means for Novel Quest prep, I have two things:
Determine what my focus is
Prepare my life to give me that focus
I’m pretty confident in what my focus will be (a novel edit and a novella finish if I have extra time). I chose them mainly because they’ve been on my to-do list for a really long time.
For the novel edit, I don’t need to do much prep. I got tired of that having been on my list since 2020 so turned attention to it this summer, sending out copies to betas. I have collected that feedback, so my struggle is to not start early. Something about a writing challenge makes me want to start fresh at a project’s beginning, in this case a draft edit, but Novel’s Quest flexible framework means I could just start tomorrow. I already have my back up project of that novella first draft I want to finish…
And for that, I still don’t need much prep. I’ll just sit down an start typing. Go fingers, go!
Keeping my fingers going, and tackling my to-do list, means that I’ve historically spent a lot of time writing in November. 50-60 hours, which is the equivalent of a second full-time job. So to prepare for that, I’m planning on doing a few things this month.
Take care of all the chores I’ve been putting off or will be on a time crunch come December.
Hanging up artwork. Scrubbing the pots. Making doctor appointments. Planning Christmas gifts. Planning my sister’s baby shower.
Free up mental space, by finishing things clamoring for my attention
Ko-Fi posts. Whumptober2024 prompts. Book formatting for Journey To Adventure.
Binging TV, so I don’t have the itch to watch the last three episodes instead of going to a write-in
Meal prepping.
I don’t actually prep for the month - but I do a huge grocery run. I will by a lot of ready meals or quick cooks like pasta and frozen pizza. Why shop and cook when I can write?
Pull back on commitments.
To maximize writing time, I usually tell friends I won’t be free in November. I also step down from leading my bookclub for that month.
How are you gonna prep?