PREPTOBER, FBI CONSULTANTS, AND SWAT STANDOFFS - 064

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transcript:

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, Preptober, FBI consultants and SWAT standoffs. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 64 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm talking about preparation for NaNoWriMo, the state of the Bureau, creating an FBI consultant as a character and the role of a hostage negotiator in a SWAT standoff.

But before we get into that, as always, I need to thank my Gold Shield Patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjamison.com, Larry Keeton, Vicky Tharp of vickitharp.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of crimibox.com, Larry Darter, and Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com for their support. Also my huge thanks to the Coffee Club Patrons for their support month after month. You all keep the lights on in the Bureau and you can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode by going to the show notes at writersdetective.com/64. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

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So as I record this, we are over halfway through October, 2019, or Preptober 2019 if you're planning on participating in NaNoWriMo. I'm sure you've heard of National Novel Writing Month, which is every November. But I'm encouraging you to join hundreds of thousands of other writers this November by signing up at nanowrimo.org and going after the goal of writing 50,000 words this November. I know, it sounds daunting. But one of the reasons why I'm suggesting this is because once you sign up, you get access to a ton of support and community and they have a great Nano Prep 101 section under writers resources. There you will find several weeks worth of writing preparation tools, like developing a story idea, character development, experimenting with a plotting method, exploring your story setting and getting your life and schedule organized for writing throughout the month of November. The ultimate goal of NaNoWriMo is for you to write 50,000 words towards a brand new novel in November. So you can plan plot, pen and outline in preparation for November 1st but everyone starts November with zero words written.

I love this idea because it's a to start a brand new story, a blank slate, and it will get you set up perfectly for having some writing momentum into the new year. Realistically, after writing through November, you'll probably take the holidays off to let that story marinate and then January means you'll already have a running start for the published my book, new year's resolution. And the NaNoWriMo word count goal forces you to work on your time management skills.

Now, speaking of time management and book publishing, some big changes are happening here at the Bureau. Some of you may know that I hired an assistant earlier this year...                                                                                                                                                      Continue reading...