Camp NaNoWriMo Looms

A couple days ago I got a reminder that Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up.  As if I could forget!  As I've mentioned in my weekly accountability and progress posts, I've been trying to get going on my novel again so I would be ready for Camp NaNo.

Ready or not, though, here it comes!  Camp starts on Saturday, July 1st... ironically, the day we'll be at Fan Expo in Denver.  At the Expo this year, we have both a community table for the Denver region of NaNoWriMo, and a panel on Saturday that will provide an overview of writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month.

It's hard to believe it's already less than a week away from the Fan Expo and the start of NaNoWriMo.  I had planned on using June to help me get a jump on my goal of finishing the draft by the end of July, but now it's looking like I probably won't have it finished until a little later this summer.  I think I'm probably a good two months from finishing the draft, and then I'll still need to do at least one more round of revisions.

I haven't done a full 50,000 word challenge in the summer since they started letting you pick your own goal for Camp, and I'm not sure I want to put that much pressure on myself.  I've always found it's a little hard to write 50,000 words in the summer months, probably partly because there's more going on in the summer, but also partly because I don't have all the write-ins and other events to help carry me through.  But I'm contemplating setting at least a similar goal for the month of July, just because I want to get as far as possible in the draft before month's end.

We'll see.  I'm hoping that as I get back to work on the novel this week, I'll get a feel for how much I can write a day if I'm confining my writing to just an hour or two, probably at the end of the day.  I don't think I can spare as much time as I would normally devote to it during November.

What about you?  Do you participate in Camp NaNo?  What's your goal for the month?

Camp NaNoWriMo, July 2023

I totally forgot, when I wrote my post for the week, that Camp NaNoWriMo would be coming up again in July.

I didn't participate at all in the April session of Camp.  In fact, April was almost over before I knew it, thanks to the scramble to get ready for the doll show.

The April session of Camp is always hard for me.  I think it's because there always seems to be a lot else going on in April, between the annual doll show, taxes, and my birthday in late April.  Last year my horse Panama got sick in April, too, so there was that to navigate as well.

I do plan on doing Camp this July, however.  I have to decide whether I'm going to use the opportunity to finish my draft of Ruby, or work on the new novel idea I had recently.  I think I'm better off working on Ruby, honestly, and using the new novel idea as something I can work on after finishing the draft (as I subscribe to the Stephen King method of revisions that says to let it sit for a little bit before going back to it).

Camp NaNoWriMo offers more flexible project goals than November, which means I'll have the ability to do what works for me.  I think I'd really like to have the draft finished by the end of July, so I might need to see where I'm at on June 30th and estimate my word count goal from there.  In general the novel is taking longer to get where it's going this time around, which is fine (it was too short and not fleshed out well enough before) but also means I am not as close to the end as I'd like right now.  If I had to guess, I'd say I'm about a third of the way into it, which means I may have more than a month's worth of writing to do unless I'm planning on being super prolific in July.

I guess that means I definitely need to get back to work on the novel next week as I mentioned in my accountability and progress posts!