Tag Archives: Camp NaNoWriMo

Camp NaNoWriMo Week 2 Recap

Posted on by

CNW_Participant

Honestly this week was a real struggle in my personal life so I didn’t make much time to write at all this week. I did, however, change what I was writing to something different because I had been struggling with what I was writing. And then I struggled again and got myself stuck.

Goal

50,000 words total by the end of April 30th.

That’s the equivalent to a 200-225 page book. So my average daily word count goal to reach my main goal is to write 1,667 words per day.

Stats for Week 2

Day 9: 2,096 words for a total of 15,904 words
Day 10: 1,211 words for a total of 17,115 words
Day 11: 0 words for a total of 17,115 words
Day 12: 0 words for a total of 17,115 words
Day 13: 0 words for a total of 17,115 words
Day 14: 545 words for a total of 17,660 words
Day 15: 0 words for a total of 17.660

*I’m not including today, April 16th, as the day is not over yet. Today’s word count will be in next week’s recap.

This Week’s Advice: It’s Okay to Change Your Mind

I found myself struggling since I started this month with writing my story for Camp. I found it extremely hard to get into the mode of writing, especially from my characters’ points of view because they just weren’t flowing correctly. I rewrote several chapters and exceeded the word count in each of the previous ones so I wouldn’t lose any words for Camp, and even though I felt the new chapters flowed much better and that they resembled who I wanted the characters to be a lot more, I still found myself struggling every single time I wrote.

So, I decided to make a change.

I kept all of my words, therefore keeping my word count, but I changed my story completely. Where before I was writing a YA/NA fantasy story about a thief and a magician, now I’m writing a YA/NA contemporary about a girl movie blogger and a guy who’s wicked into movies, too, but has a few quirks.

And let me tell you something: the words flowed so much easier than before.

I wrote over 2,000 words for the first chapter of this new story and found that even if it wasn’t perfect (because what first draft ever is), I still had fun doing it, and I think that’s the key here: having fun.

If you’re like me then you probably had your heart set out for something that you really wanted to write because you love the genre or the idea of the story or one specific character, but maybe it’s just not the time for you to tell that story yet if you find yourself struggling as much as I did.

So take the chance, make a change (and breakawaaaaayyy). Change up the plot, the characters, write a whole new story in a completely different genre than what you were expecting to. That just might help you find those creative juices you were looking for.

I hope the second week of Camp NaNoWriMo has been treating you well and that you find you’re really getting to know not only your characters, but the world they’re in and their situations a lot better.

Do you find that you’re stuck and struggling with what you’ve been writing? How far have you gotten in your story toward your goal? Do you have to start over with a new genre? Let me know!

Camp NaNoWriMo 2016 Week 1 Recap

Posted on by

CNW_Participant

This past week had a really great start and I was so excited to be able to say that my word count grew and grew quickly, but then I reached a lull toward the end of the first week and saw a little bit of a dip, but I wasn’t too far behind and was actually ahead of the goal for the day.

Goal

50,000 words total by the end of April 30th.

That’s the equivalent to a 200-225 page book. So my average daily word count goal to reach my main goal is to write 1,667 words per day.

Stats for Week 1

Day 1: 2,683 words for a total of 2,683 words
Day 2: 5,467 words for a total of 8,150 words
Day 3: 2,449 words for a total of 10,599 words
Day 4: 1,844 words for a total of 12,443 words
Day 5: 1,110 words for a total of 13,553 words
Day 6: 0 words for a total of 13,533 words
Day 7: 0 words for a total of 13,533 words
Day 8: 255 words for a total of 13,808 words

*I’m not including today, April 9th, as the day is not over yet. Today’s word count will be in next week’s recap.

This Week’s Advice: Stay Motivated

Writing isn’t always an easy thing for everyone. For some people writing is the equivalent to what math is for others (like me): it’s something to dread, to turn away from, and to hate. But writing doesn’t have to be all of those things for many reasons, but I think one of the biggest reasons writing is a turn off for some people is because of a lack of motivation.

When writing for a challenge like Camp NaNoWriMo, it can seem daunting to write 50,000 words unless you’re practiced in the art of it. It really is a lot of words, if you think about it. When typed out into Microsoft Word in 12 point font, Times New Roman, it can reach upwards to 100 pages of manuscript, which is nothing to shake a stick at! That’s a great beginning and it’s definitely a smaller novel in the making.

But how do you get to that point? When will you be able to say, “I accomplished this because ___!”?

Stay motivated. It is so, so easy to fall off of the wagon and to derail from what you had set your goal to, whether it be 10,000 words or 100,000. Life gets in the way, things come up, and sometimes you’re just plain tired – trust me, I understand. But there are some ways that can help you to stay motivated that will help you be able to reach your goal in the time that you want to reach it in, and to be able to say and feel that you’ve accomplished something.

Here are some tips and tricks to stay motivated and to keep at it while writing:

  • Find prompts to churn some creativity. If you’re ever in a rut there are thousands of prompts online that you can find to jump start your creativity to make something awesome.
  • Reward yourself, even for small accomplishments. You want to be able to reward yourself with something each time you reach a milestone that you deem worthy of rewarding. For me, I’ll reward myself with something small every 10,000 words, such as a new book or something. You can deem whatever your prize is worth to the amount of words you’ve written, but giving yourself small rewards when you reach those little goals can really keep your motivation going. Reward yourself with something big when you’ve made it to the end and you’ll feel like you’ve truly accomplished something.
  • Take breaks. Yes, I’m telling you to watch Netflix (and chill if you want, I won’t judge), or read that book you’ve been dying to get to (which I’m doing in between writing), or go out to each with friends, or sleep. All of these things helps to bring you back to reality and away from your writing and it allows your brain to recycle through all of that stress that writing can bring on if you do it for too long. So try to breathe and relax every day, too (but not too much – you still want to reach your goal!).
  • Listen to music that can inspire the next scene you’re about to write. I often prefer complete silence when I’m writing because it allows me to think through everything I’m typing, but I think that listening to music can really help set the tone and mood for what you’re trying to achieve in the scene you’re writing. Need epic battle music? What about a movie score from The Lord of the Rings? Need something to lighten the mood? Find a tune that never fails to make you smile.
  • Don’t stress! I know that when people are stressed they tend to not want to do the thing they’re supposed to do, so the important thing to remember is to not stress out too much about not reaching your word count goal for the day. Real life is going to happen, jobs and kids and errands and responsibilities are going to get in the way, but don’t worry: you can always go back and write more the next day or over the weekend when you have free time.

In all honesty, this is supposed to be a fun time of writing where you get to learn about your characters and your world, how they all work together, and also learn more about yourself in the process. The first week of Camp NaNoWriMo is a fruitful and powerful one, and I know from experience that it only gets tougher from here when you start to hit those writing slumps.

Keep your head up, keep motivated, take plenty of breaks for water and food, and have fun!

If you’re participating in Camp NaNo, how was your progress the first week? What’s your overall word goal? Have you found this week to be a good one or do you find yourself falling behind already? Want to share what your story’s about? Tell me!

Camp NaNoWriMo 2016

Posted on by

CNW_Participant

Oh man, guys, it’s that time of year again! I’m going to be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in the month of April and I’m pretty pumped about it!

If you don’t know what Camp NaNoWriMo is, it’s a more relaxed version of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in which the goal for NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in one month. NaNoWriMo takes place every year in the month of November, but Camp NaNoWriMo takes place in both April and June of each year. The only thing is is that the goal for Camp is set from 10,000 to 999,999 words. So you have a much broader range in which to write!

Check out their FAQs for any questions you might have.

I didn’t participate in last year’s NaNoWriMo (well, I started to, but didn’t get far), and soo with this upcoming Camp NaNoWriMo I decided that instead of working on the same project I worked on last year, I’m going to start a whole new one! Yup, I’m that ambitious.

What’s my new project going to be about? I wrote out the synopsis the other day and I’m actually pretty pumped about this one:

Nara is a thief of the Rising City, and she’s been one since she was a little girl, trained and abandoned by her father. Now, as a twenty year old, she is one of the most infamous thieves in all of the Rising City. But when one mistake almost costs her her life, she is thrown into a life debt by someone she never would have thought she’d ally herself with: a Magician.

Mikail is a Magician, a rare breed that is seldom seen in the world anymore, and he is still honing his skills. When his powers manifested at a young age, he didn’t expect to be in the eye of every powerful person in the Rising City – especially that of the Queen. But when one day his magic goes haywire and he saves a thief from most certain death, he thinks that maybe she is his ticket to freedom.

Though the two cross and their lives mix, neither one could be prepared for what happens to them – or their hearts.

I’m pretty excited about this one because I’m picturing more of a steampunk kind of setting, but we’ll see if I stick with that! My characters will take me wherever they want to go and that may not be the direction they want.

So with this new story I hope to write every day, at least something per day. I have a goal of 20,000 words set for the month, but if I write more than that’s awesome! If not, well, that’s okay, too.

My average words per day in order to reach my goal is 667 words. Very easily doable, honestly (considering some of my reviews are over 1,000 words, I’m pretty sure I can easily do this per day, haha!).

If you want to check out my progress and add me as a friend, you can check out my profile!

I’ll be posting weekly writing updates and wrap-ups, so be sure to check back to see my progress and how my writing’s going. And in those wrap-ups I’ll also talk about writing advice and tips and such for any of those who may need a bit of help or inspiration.

If you’re participating this year, please let me know! I’d love to hear your ideas and talk about writing with you. If you’re not participating, then let me know if this is something you’d be interested in in the summer months. Maybe I’ll even join you and participate then, too!

Writing Goals for 2016

Posted on by

Let’s talk about ALL THE RESOLUTIONS! Woo!

No, but seriously, this is my third post in a week about resolutions or relating to it. I promise it’ll be the last one!

So today I wanted to talk a little bit about my writing goals for this year. I know I set up a vague goal last year to edit my NaNoWriMo novel from 2014, and that flopped, but this year I want that to change.

As a graduate of Professional Writing, I want to be a writer! I love to create and be able to tell stories with my voice. I mean, anyone can be a writer regardless of what they do or don’t graduate with, but for me, it became a goal once I made it through college. And I sort of didn’t do much of it at all last year except for Camp NaNoWriMo, and I want to change that.

So this year I’m going to make three goals that I really want to see to the end. These goals or writing for these goals don’t have to be perfect, but I definitely want to be able to see something come of them.

So here are my three major writing goals for the year and how I plan on actually achieving them:

1 . Finish editing my 2014 NaNoWriMo novel.

And this time I mean it, dammit. I loved my first novel that I completed for NaNo. I grew attached to my two main characters and their stories, backstories, the world and how they grew up in it. And every time I’d write about them, or start to edit and find out more about them, things changed and grew and expanded into something more.

So I want to make it a point this year to read through my 100 pages manuscript and at least complete editing that story. It’s written to completion, it just needs to be edited (and then rewritten to add/take away edits, but one step at a time).

How I’ll Be Doing This: I’m going to do my best during some downtimes each weekend to see this through. I know I can do it; it’s just a matter of actually doing it that’s the challenge.

2. Finish writing my 2015 Camp NaNoWriMo novel.

I love this novel, too! My characters keep growing and developing and I’m learning so much more about them as I go, which then makes me want to go back and just start rewriting into the characters that I know they can be. But I really need to actually finish writing this one first.

I’ve actually written more for this story than the previous one and I’m not even close to be done with it yet. I’m hoping to get in at least another 20,000 to 30,000 words before it’s done, but who knows?

How I’ll Be Doing This: So the way I’ll be going about this is working on it for a half hour two to three times a week. I can push out 1,000 words in a half hour, so it’ll go at a decent pace if I actually stick to that goal. And of course I won’t limit myself if I’m on a roll and I want to write more in a given day.

3. Start writing a new novel, whether for Camp/NaNo or not.

I had an idea that came to me last night as I was trying to sleep, as all great ideas do. And I actually really, really like this story idea so I’m going to start writing it this year.

Now this doesn’t mean I have to finish it this year, but I do want to at least start writing it and get what I can down before I forget anything.

How I’ll Be Doing This: a) To do this I’ll do the same as above: a half hour two to three times a week. Of course, if I choose to wait until Camp or NaNo, then I’ll have plenty of time to bust out some words, so that’ll be fine.

b) And I’ll also do accomplish this goal by doing something I hate doing: outlining. I seriously hate outlining because I just like to go right into the story and get as much as I can out on paper. But I think this will help with how I want the story to flow.

So there you have it, my 2016 writing goals! They’re pretty straight forward, and may seem daunting, but I’m going to do my best to succeed at all of them.

Accompanying video: Writing Goals for 2016

Do you have any writing goals for the year? How challenging are they? Do you think you’ll be able to complete them or do you think you’ll need an accountability buddy to help you push through it? Let me know!

Writing Slumps & How Much They Suck

Posted on by

Well, it’s pretty much the last week of NaNoWriMo and I only wrote a few times during the first week. Pretty much: I gave up. It’s not that I didn’t like what I was writing because I worked on this story earlier in the year, it’s just I’m so drained of energy after working 8-10 hours that I have no oomph to think about writing.

I find that slumps in general just suck. I’m in a huge reading and writing slump and it makes me sad because I absolutely loved doing both at the beginning of the year before I started my full time job; now it just kind of feels like a chore to do either.

But since I already talked about reading slumps and how much they suck, let me talk today about writing slumps and how annoying they can be.

When you’re writing a story, at least from my experience, you become engulfed in that world and you want to know more about your own characters, the world in which they live, how society, magic, whatever works in that world. I know when I was writing this story back in March or April, I was so in love with it. I was on a roll and I managed to reach my goal of 50,000 words written – it was awesome!

And then soon after that, after Camp NaNoWriMo ended, I slowed down to the point I stopped writing. It’s not that I didn’t want to continue my story – I knew where I wanted it to go, what plot points I wanted to add, etc – but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it since I didn’t have a word goal to work toward anymore.

I think that for me, I need that word count goal to work toward. So you’d think that with NaNoWriMo I’d be totally set, right? Well, I hadn’t written for so long at that point that writing was 1) refreshing, but 2) was also a pain. I had to pick up where I left off, and I wasn’t super happy with what I had written and I didn’t want to rewrite until I reach the editing stage.

Unfortunately that means that I’ve put off actually completing much of any writing for this month. I wrote over 5,000 words for this NaNoWriMo, which is awesome, but it still wasn’t enough for me to be happy with.

I think that part of the problem is my job, as I’ve stated, but it’s also just me. I’ve become incredibly lazy when it comes to my passions and that alone scares me. It’s incredibly hard for me to focus on what I’m reading lately, and I think that’s translating over to my writing.

Nowadays I just want to sit on YouTube all day and watch videos, or listen to music, or watch Netflix. It’s so frustrating and it upsets me, but I also don’t do much to change it.

So what about getting out of a slump? What about getting out of a writing slump and pushing through to finish the story?

Well, I’m going to seriously look at what’s important to me and try to figure out some sort of schedule or something to work for me.

What about you? If you’re a writer, do you feel like you get stuck often, or do you just chug through to the end? Let me know!