Camp NaNoWriMo July

So…this happened. I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. I enjoyed it so much in April so I thought it would be fun to do it again. And I want to finish the project I worked on back then, that’s been on the back burner for a while because I had to complete another project and meet a deadline.

June has been really busy and it seems July will be, too. No rest for the wicked, right? 🙂

Wish me luck.

 

#CampNaNoWriMo result

So. That was April? I can’t believe how fast it swooshed by!!

I’ve already told you I won NaNo (yay!), but I thought I’d show you the final result:

As you can see, I’ve been shamefully lazy this last week, but I promise I have a good reason! My husband is a hot-shot global support manager, who manages people all over the world, across all time zones (from Japan to the US) meaning his work hours are weird and insane. He works a lot, people! But last week he actually managed to get a few days off, and I wanted to spend them with him when I had the chance.

Ergo: very little writing. I probably would have worked harder if I hadn’t already reached my goal, but now I chose to take a few days off instead. Marriage before writing, and all that! 🙂

I didn’t actually take all those days off, though, so I’m not as lazy as it seems. I just didn’t write anything. I still did research and came up with backstories for the MCs in my next story, but that doesn’t count for NaNo.

So. Final word tally: 25856 words. That means I can easily reach 30K in a month, so if I decide to go ahead and sign up for Camp in July, too, I’m gonna set 30K as my goal.

My current WIP, Never Before Him, isn’t done, so I’ll keep working on it. It’s currently at 20K and I’m nowhere near done! Holy crap, it’s gonna be long. Or at least a lot longer than what I usually write 🙂

I have to say I really enjoyed taking part of Camp NaNo. I can see myself doing it again. See you in July?

And congratulations to my writer friend Addison who also reached her goal. We rock! 🙂

Have a great week! 🙂

Writing update and NaNo winner!

Let’s start with the most important stuff:

Woop woop. I did it! I won Camp NaNoWriMo and reached my goal of 20K!! *doing the happy dance*

And with lots of time to spare, too.

Here’s details of last week’s  word count. Tuesday looks terrible, and even though it was, it wasn’t that terrible. I wrote more, but I deleted several hundred words because I rewrote a part of the story, so that’s why the word count only increased with 296 words that day.

I finished on Wednesday as you can see, but I decided to keep writing the entire month. That’s what I had planned anyway, and I want to see how many words I can manage in a month. That’s why I changed ink color again. Black ink means words over the goal, I’m still writing Never Before Him.

Total word count after 3 weeks: 22692 words.

One week to go. Do you think I’ll manage 30K? And before you answer: I haven’t written anything today, so it’s only 6 days before the end of the month. But I think my goal for next Camp NaNoWriMo in July will be 30K.

Look. It says winner! 🙂

Monday update and #NaNo

Here’s my weekly update and Camp NaNoWriMo progress:

As you can see, I wrote less words this week than last, mainly because I woke up on Thursday with a fever and a cold. But I managed to surpass the weekly target anyway, so I’m still way ahead.

The total NaNo word count yesterday, after finishing those 1147 words, was 16026 words. So only 4K words to go until I’ve reached my goal. According to the NaNo site, I only need to write 284 words/day to finish on time. I think I can manage that, don’t you? 🙂

I’ve been working on Never Before Him all week, and it seems that it will be a little longer than I originally planned. I’ve written 8700 words in the story so far, and Leon and Jerome haven’t even met in person yet, only talked online.

Jerome is an interesting character to write: he doesn’t speak, but communicate mostly in writing. It’s not because he’s unable to, but because he’s chosen not to (because of reasons). So I have to be mindful and not let words slip out, which is easier said than done. Instead of asking “what?”, I have to convey it with body language.  It’s fun and challenging and it has made me realize how much we depend on our words. Or even just sounds.

And that’s all for today. Keep your fingers crossed that next week’s writing update will say “I FINISHED CAMP NANO” 🙂

Have a great week.

Camp NaNoWriMo Tag

I stumbled upon a Camp NaNoWriMo Tag, and since I need fun stuff for the blog, I thought I’d do it. The ones I saw was YouTube vlogs, but I don’t work like that. So I’m rebelling and answering the questions in writing 🙂 

I have two projects I’m working on, and the reason for that is that I started a Christmas story in the end of March, and it was going so well that I didn’t want to put it on hold. So I updated my NaNo projects to include the Xmas story on top of my original plan, which was working on a story called Never Before Him. 

20 000 words. That felt like a reachable goal for me, I didn’t want to set myself up for failure .

I need some kind of beverage when I write. No beverage=no writing. What kind depends on my mood, but always water. Coffee to get started. Some kind of juice if my brain feels sluggish and I need a vitamin kick. Tea, don’t forget about tea! And on occasion maybe even a glass of wine.

This is my first time. I’ve known about regular NaNo for years, but I’ve always felt like 50K words is too much and too overwhelming to manage in one month, so I’ve rejected the idea. But when I found out about Camp and that you were allowed to set your own goals, I was intrigued. So I set a reasonable goal and it’s going great so far. If I win it, I’m considering participating in next Camp too, but upping my word goal. But let’s not jump the gun. First I finish this one, then we’ll talk 🙂

Good old Microsoft Word. Nothing fancy. And I keep all my research organized in OneNote. Works perfectly.

Handwrite my novel? What is this, the 18th century? Do people do that anymore? Why?

Pantser!! I can’t plot my stories, that totally kills my creativity. I plan my characters and their backstories, but I don’t plot anything in the novel. I know that there’s going to be a HEA (I write romance, remember?), but how they get there happens organically.

A little over a year.

In general I don’t like writing advice. Writing advice makes me question my ability and my stories and kills my joy of writing. But I’ve read one piece of advice that I’ve found useful: get yourself a writing buddy, a critique partner, or beta readers. Or all of the above.  I probably would have given up on my writing a long time ago if it weren’t for my writer friends and beta readers.

Um, you’re gonna think I’m weird now, but having a deadline. I work better when I’m on a deadline.