National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner, kicking off November 1.  I use NaNo (as it is affectionately known) to write first draft material.  I’ve participated every year since 2003.  That would be 8 consecutive years.  Alas, I do not have 8 first drafts.  Why?  I’ve chosen at least one year to work on a personal non-fiction project, and a couple of projects just didn’t pan out, although I managed to choke out the required 50,000 words to “win.”

I have some first drafts with very definite possibilities for being marketable books in some venue — as soon as I learn to effectively revise and polish.  I’m working on that.  Those works are Polar Bear on the Loose, Twilight, Threads and Ties, Hot Coffee, and maybe Walls.  Maybe I could eventually do something with Fooling Mother Nature — last year’s effort, but I’m not sure it will be worth the effort.

What has become readily apparent is a true “seat of the pants” approach does not work for me.  Polar Bear on the Loose was, in theory, a seat of the pants writing, but in reality, I’d been blogging in character for a little while before writing the book, so I had the character’s voice down pretty well.  For a first person narrative novel, I think that made a huge difference.

With that thought in mind and realizing November first is roaring up on us, I’ve paused in my revision efforts for Polar Bear on the Loose to begin planning this year’s NaNo novel, which has a working title of Granite Hill.

The story is still forming, but I’ve felt I need to understand this story’s setting a little before I can truly understand my characters — who have rough outlines but nothing clear yet.  To do that, I’ve picked a location and a size.  I’m looking for demographics that fit this fictional town.  I’ve found the website City Data to be particularly useful for this process.

First, the town name came to me — Granite Hill.  It’s in Texas, so I had to make sure there wasn’t already a Granite Hill, Texas.  One did not appear on a search engine search.  Then, I figured I should find a place in Texas that had some granite rock formations.  Enchanted Rock State Natural Area has a large granite rock formation.  Cool.  That’s near Fredericksburg, Texas.  Hmm.  There’s a ghost town of sorts between Enchanted Rock and Fredericksburg called Crabapple, TX (these two features may come into play in the novel — I don’t know yet).  If you click on the link, you’ll note Farm to Market (FM) 965 right outside the park.  If you drag the map enough, you’ll see following FM 965 to the south will take you to Fredericksburg.  Granite Hill is located on FM 965 between Enchanted Rock and Crabapple, TX (unincorporated).  I imagine the ranchers and others who own the property in that area would be surprised to discover this.

For now*, Granite Hill is a small town of 583 persons.  What’s available in a town of that size?  I did a little research, looking for other Texas towns about that size and found one.  I copied the demographics for that town into a file on Scrivener, and I’ve changed the town name to Granite Hill.  I’ve adjusted the numbers where appropriate to add up to 583.  For county data (since this town wasn’t in Gillespie County), I’ve copied the appropriate data from the Fredericksburg page (linked above).  I have a few more modifications to make, but, in essence, this website has helped me construct the basic demographics of fictional town by mixing and matching data from a couple of different cities.  From this information, I can combine the few details I do know about my characters to find the threads of this story.  I have the basic conflict but not the details of it yet.  I have a theme beginning to emerge.  For you How to Think Sideways students, I have a Dot and Line.

That’s where I’m at with the story.  I thought you’d enjoy learning a little about the process I used to devise my fictional town.

* I say “for now,” because I am very early in the process, and anything and everything is subject to change.