Prepping for NaNo

I have started prepping for my first challenge with NaNoWriMo. I am so excited to actually be participating this year, I had wanted to in the past but between working 32 hours a week 15 credits in college and a (now ex) Boyfriend, and maybe sleep in there, I never had the time.
This year is going to be different. And I am more excited than I thought I would be.
I'm usually not a huge fan of outlining, but then again I have never had as high of a goal as writing 50,000 words in 30 days. I also have never written a sequel to a novel. I never really realized how much planning and forethought have to go into the second book!

I started prep by adding a baby names app to my iphone...you all may laugh, but it comes in handy!
I used this app to look up a bunch of names and I started making a list of boys and girls names that I liked the sound of. Some of Germanic, Celtic, Danish, Aremian, even Aztec origins. I figured that by having a list of both gender names on hand that whenever I needed a new character when writing I would already have a list and wouldn't have to waste time hunting one down.

So far it's actually worked.

I started, on note cards, listing scenes that need to happen. A notecard often includes: which POV I'm writing from, who needs to be in the scene and roughly what happens in that scene. Related to this I've also (for the FIRST time EVER) written out character sketches. Before I just had a detailed idea of who these people were in my head, but putting it on paper is an interesting exercise and has revealed a few holes in some of the characters that need plugging both as characters and as their place in the story.

Also, I went back and re-vamped the map of the "world" I'd created and made a better, more in depth version of a region a few of my characters will be spending much time in. 

Next up is solidifying what the "bad guys" are up to, even if I don't reveal all of it to the reader, I need it to be more concrete for the rest of the writing. 

Is it too much to say how fast I hope October will go by so I can start this next novel? :)