Camp NaNoWriMo Goal Achieved!

It's been far too long since I provided a Camp NaNoWriMo update.  The last time I posted, I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was going to be extending this novel into July.

Tonight I finished my novel, Amnesia, at long last.  I've thought I was "close to finishing" for about a month and a half at this point.  I just kept realizing I needed more and more to finish it off properly.

But tonight I finally wrote all the way to the end!

I finished the novel just under my word count goal for July, which was 135,000 words.  After several rounds of lengthening my word count goal, it seems I was finally spot on with what I needed to finish the story.  (To be fair, some of the lengthening was because I knew I was cutting out a substantial chunk of backstory that I was rewriting or ditching.)

I'd already started working a little bit on the sequel, so I just moved directly into working on that, and therefore met my word count goal of 135,000 words the same night as I finished the novel!

At some point, I need to separate these two novels into their own files and figure out word counts for each.  I think the first novel, Amnesia, is around 107,000 words, give or take once I finish cutting some and adding some.  We'll see how long it is after revision.  The second novel I haven't give a title yet, and I have no idea yet how long it's going to be, although I'll aim for them to be about the same.

My plan at this point is to write the sequel now, then revise both novels together.  I want to be able to do a staggered release, with the first novel to be followed by the second a few months later.  When I release the second, I'll likely do a promo on the first one to help sell the second.  While I'm gearing up to publish Amnesia and sequel, I'll get back to work on Ruby Ransome.  (Although now I'm also thinking about reviving a book I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013, a genderbent retelling of Phantom of the Opera.)

By the way, because I hadn't done an update in so long, I also hadn't posted about hitting my word count goal at the end of June.  It took a whopping day of writing the last day of June, but I did it!

Camp Sandwich Update and July Camp NaNoWriMo Plans

I posted yesterday about how my writing goal is going really well.  As of yesterday's screenshots, this is where I was at:

My daily word count is starting to look a little like a heartbeat.  I have good days and days where I don't write as much.  I'm happy with this as it's all steady progress, and the bigger word count days help to give me a little boost periodically.

The story is in a good place.  I know I'll be discarding about 30,000 words of what I've written; some of it I'm rewriting to better fit the direction the story has gone in, and some of it I'm just getting rid of.  If you read my post about catching up after a couple missed days of writing two weeks ago, you may notice I increased my official goal to 120,000 last week to reflect the new direction.  If I check the word count of just the sections I know I'll be keeping, it's more like 78,000, which feels like a good point for where I'm at in the events of the story.  I'm still aiming for a 90,000-word novel, all said and done.

But I don't think I'm going to be done in the next week, which is an issue, because it's going to ruin my plans to go back to work on Ruby in July.  And there's another reason why that may not happen: I've been thinking of writing a sequel to Amnesia, since I'm planning on ending the novel in a fairly... open-ended way.  It will be a sadistically perfect ending for the first novel, but at the same time, it will desperately need a sequel if there's going to be any closure!

I've decided I want to start working on the sequel right away, before revising the first novel.  Even if it means I end up rewriting and revising more later, I feel like right now, I'm motivated and invested in the characters, and since I want the story to roll right into the sequel, it will be a good idea to start writing it as soon as I'm done with the first book.

The other reason I want to start writing the sequel right away is because I do plan to publish these books, and I want to be able to release the sequel a few months after the first novel, and run a promo for the first novel in order to help sell the second.  There's a concept in indie author marketing that the best thing to sell your books is to keep writing more books, because that way when you capture a new reader, you're not just selling one book, you're potentially selling several or all of your books.

The trick will be getting back to work on Ruby right away once I'm done with these, so that I can get a bunch of those books written and start publishing that in quick succession soon, too.

So my July camp goal will officially be finishing Amnesia and starting on the sequel (title yet to be determined).  We'll see where I get by the end of the month, and if I decide to roll the word count goal for both novels into one.  If I'm still working on Amnesia, it might make sense to keep it all under the same project in the NaNoWriMo project and goal tracker, at least until the end of Camp.  Once Camp is over, I can create a new project and a new goal for the sequel, and split the Scrivener project into two at that time.

Camp Sandwich Catchup

I'm pleased to say that after my long post yesterday regarding my broken daily writing streak, I ended up getting a lot done on my novel.  I picked up where I'd left off, made significant headway, and stopped writing with a good sense of where I'll be going from here.

I think it made a big difference that I started writing earlier in the day.  I usually end of up waiting too long and then trying to squeeze a little writing time in at the very end of the day.  I used to choose this as my writing time as I would feel most energized at night, but lately I just want to read and wind down for the night.  So I need to start working on it earlier.  Even around or a little after dinner time would be fine.  I just am not doing much daily writing when I wait until I only have 20 or 30 minutes to write before I get ready for bed.

I also realized in all my writing yesterday that much of my earlier backstory, which I'd intended to use as flashback material, will need to be rewritten or thrown out.  That means I actually have a significant amount of writing still left to do, and I will not be done as early as I thought.  While I'd hoped to get back to work on Ruby Ransome during July Camp, I'm actually okay with continuing to work on Amnesia if I'm not done with it yet by then.  I want to get the first draft as right as possible, so I'm not having to fix a lot of holes with the second draft.

Currently I'm at 89,317 words, and my daily word count needed to reach my goal of 90,000 by the end of the month (the end of my goal) is an amusing 40 words.  I'll be writing more than that per day, obviously.  But I figure I'm actually at about 62,000 words if you don't count the backstory stuff I wrote earlier on.  That means I'm about two-thirds through the novel, which seems about right for where I'm at in the story.  (Maybe a little less than two-thirds, if it ends up longer than 90,000 words once finished, or if I tighten earlier in the story, where I feel like some of the stuff drags on a bit.)

I'm debating on whether to correct the inaccurate (if I discard a bunch) word count between my Camp Sandwich and July Camp projects, but then again, maybe that will make it more difficult to see my progress across multiple projects.  So maybe I'll just increase my goal in July to account for the 27,000 ish words I plan to discard or rewrite.

I guess that's all assuming I don't finish the novel in June, as I may very well still do.  If I think I'm going to finish in June, I could also increase the current goal to reflect that change.  If I increase it to 120,000, that makes my new daily goal 1,800 words, which is a lot to write every day... so yeah, the finishing of this novel may spill over into the July Camp.

Unless I keep having days like yesterday!

Daily Writing Streak Broken :(

After nearly two months of doing at least something on my novel every day, from about mid-April during Camp NaNoWriMo all the way to this past Monday, my streak finally broke.

To be fair, it wasn't my fault, and if it wasn't for the events of this week I don't think it would have happened at all.  Tuesday we had a very full day, and got to the barn at 10pm to grain my horses, only to find that one of them - Panama, the one who was very sick two years ago and needed a lot of care - had eaten free-feed hay all day without drinking on the hottest day of the year so far, and was very dehydrated and uncomfortable.

So we spent the next five hours walking him, coaxing mashes into him, and monitoring him for hydration, poop, and how he was feeling.  It took a while, but over time we got a total of almost 5 gallons of water into him, plus he pooped twice and peed once.  He was obviously feeling much better, too, so we felt pretty good at that point about leaving him.

I had been waiting until evening to work on my novel since we had so much going on during the day, so obviously didn't write that night.  It was after 4am before we got in bed, and I didn't sleep until nearly 5am, since I read for a while to calm myself down.

Yesterday was another busy day, this time on an extreme shortage of sleep, but we still made it over to the barn to mash Panama a couple times.  All the horses were obviously still quite full from the day before, and were eating their dinner very slowly; perhaps because of this, Panama didn't eat the entire mash we offered him around 4pm (they get fed dinner at 2pm).  He seemed very sleepy and was well hydrated, so I wasn't too worried, but we still went back later to mash him again, and that one he ate very well.

When we went out there to mash him early this afternoon, before dinner this time, he ate with gusto and actually hollered for his mash, something he hadn't been doing the last few days.  He's normally super vocal, so it was a good sign that he was back to that behavior today.

I felt so bad about not writing on Tuesday, but there was really nothing for it.  Last night I opened up the Scrivener project and refreshed my memory on where I was and what I intended to write next, but I was exhausted from Tuesday night and a lack of sleep, so I didn't work on it.

While logically I know it's okay that I wasn't able to write for a couple days, that sometimes other things have to take precedence, I still feel disappointed and slightly worried that I will have a hard time picking the habit back up.  For me, part of the daily writing habit is not making excuses or exceptions, because once I stop writing every day, it's far too easy to let the habit slip and eventually forget about it entirely.

So tonight I need to make sure that I work on my novel at some point, no matter what.  Even if it's just a little bit, to get back into the habit and refamiliarize myself with where I was in the story.

NaNoWriMo Camp Sandwich: The Tuesday Bump

Earlier this year, we set up a standing write-in with one of our biggest supporters for the Denver region of NaNoWriMo.  Write-ins during NaNoWriMo in November are always so motivating and helpful for staying on track, that I figured I could stand to harness that momentum year-round.

We started the write-in along with the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo in April, and so far it's been going really well.  In fact, while it helps me to stay on track the rest of the week, I usually write nearly as much (or a little more) on write-in days as I do the rest of the week combined.  I've been affectionately calling it the Tuesday bump, since you can see the dramatic increase in word count every Tuesday.

This screenshot of my graph is from before I worked on my novel yesterday, but you can clearly see when the past three write-ins were:

This one is the daily word count graph, but again, you can pick out the write-in days pretty easily.  (Plus, you can see Sunday's small "aha" moment, which I mentioned in my week 23 goals post.)

I don't know that the weekly write-in has been entirely responsible for keeping me going on this novel, but it has definitely helped.  Getting that massive word count bump every Tuesday helps me make more progress than I would be making otherwise, for one thing.  But the weekly standing write-in also helps me to keep the novel at the forefront of my mind, making it easier to stick to my goal of writing every day.  Without the weekly write-in, I'm pretty sure I would have taken "just one day" off by now, which would have turned into more, which would have turned into not working on the novel anymore.

Instead, I'm nearly finished with (and thoroughly enjoying) this novel.  When I took those screenshots yesterday, I had 78,601 words.  I wrote another 1,668 last night, hitting 80,000 (80,269).  And today is Tuesday, which means (you guessed it!) probably another considerable bump in word count is coming later this evening. 

So you could probably say that the Tuesday bump has saved this novel, and possibly Ruby as well, although the latter still remains to be seen.  I've always been a strong advocate for using NaNoWriMo to create lasting writing habits, but now I have to say, I recommend year-round motivators as well.  Whatever those might be for you, find them and utilize them!

Camp Sandwich Progress: Memorial Day Bonus Post

Sometimes self-employed work-from-homers find it difficult to not work on weekends and holidays.  I'm no exception.  But today, I decided, I'm treating as a holiday.

Mostly.

I'll still do barn chores (I don't typically take off on holidays for that gig, as horses don't really have holidays), and I'll still work on my novel.  I'm also planning on working on the doll room today.  Honestly, I don't know how much of a holiday I'm still treating it as at this point.  Maybe just because I'm being more relaxed about getting stuff done today.

Or maybe it's more psychological, since I'm waiting until tomorrow to post my goals for the week.

In any case, I'm taking it a little easy today.

I've been pretty pleased with my progress on my novel since my last post about my NaNoWriMo Camp Sandwich progress.  

There was one day when my actual activity for the day was watching a movie (research!), so I wrote a single word for the day just to get credit for having worked on it.  And then there was last Tuesday, when I wrote 3,700 words in one day, thanks in part to our weekly write-in and thanks also to the fact that I reached a part I'd been wanting to write and got really into it.

Remember, ignore the super high word count for the first day.  That was just me loading the ending word count from April's session of Camp.

Last night I topped 70,000 words.  I'm getting really close to my stated goal of 90,000 words, and I'm pretty excited about it.  I don't know that I'll be done at 90,000, as I feel like I still have a lot of story to cover, but of course there will have to be some things cut and rewritten so that will help to trim it.  I think 90,000 will be an ideal length for this novel, so that will probably be my goal for the final draft, and it feels like I'm on track to meet that.  I won't worry too much if it's a little less or a little more, though.

I also feel like I'm on track to finish writing before the end of June, which is important.  Ideally I'd like to be done around mid-June at the latest, so that I have time to do a few quick revisions in the novel, mostly continuity things that have come up while I've been writing, since I didn't plot this and have mostly pantsed the whole thing.  Then the goal is to start refreshing my memory on where I was in Ruby Ransome before the next session of Camp starts in July, and let Amnesia sit for a while so I can go back to it later for a thorough, more objective revision.

I'll keep posting about progress, but so far, I'm pleased!

Camp NaNoWriMo Sandwich Update

Here's an update from Camp Sandwich!  As you may remember, I'm still working on my novel in between Camp NaNoWriMo sessions.  There are always two sessions of Camp NaNo, one in April and one in July, but I didn't want to stop writing during the two months in between.  So here we are at Camp Sandwich!

I love that NaNoWriMo allows you the ability to track a writing project at any time of the year now.  Even better, you can track multiple goals for the same writing project.  

I wish you could carry over the existing wordcount and just count the words written during the goal period, but so far that's not a thing.  However during Camp it's pretty easy just to set my word count goal higher and report the existing word count on the first day, even if it does make it look like I wrote a massive amount of words on day 1.

So far I have written every day this month, which is an improvement on April Camp, when I missed a couple days throughout the month.  There were admittedly a couple of days when I finished writing after midnight, so I reported the words as being for the previous day to get credit for writing that day.  It's not tomorrow until you sleep, right?

(I haven't worked on the novel yet today, so ignore the fact that the word count for this day is zero.)

It feels good to make sure I get a little writing in every day, and I feel like I'm making really good progress with the word count and the story.  I've had several aha moments that have been carrying me through the tougher periods, and I'm currently about two-thirds of the way to my goal word count of 90,000.  I don't know whether the book will really be finished at 90,000, but it's a good length for a novel so that was the goal I decided to shoot for.  I may have some things to cut and revise once I'm finished, though, so I'm actually hoping to get a little over that, all said and done.

I'm still hopeful that I'll get the book finished before July Camp, maybe even before that based on how much I'm writing per day versus the daily required word count to reach my goal (which keeps going down, incidentally).  Once I'm finished, I intend to do a quick revision of a few continuity issues that have come up while I've been writing (since I've been entirely pantsing this novel), and then I'll let it sit for a little while before I go back and do a major round of revisions.  I subscribe to the Steven King/On Writing way of doing revisions, which is to let it sit for a little while first so that it's not as fresh or familiar when you do your revisions.

And of course, I need to get back to working on my Ruby Ransome series soon, and since that series and this book are completely different, I don't particularly want to be working on both at the same time.  So that adds a little urgency to my goal of finishing this novel's first draft soon, maybe even before July Camp starts so that I have some separation between the two.  I'll have to be careful about how I shift back and forth while working on revisions, too.

Right now, though, I'm excited to be where I'm at: writing every day and working on making it a solid habit!

April Camp NaNoWriMo Results and Camp Sandwich

I mentioned in my last blog post that I am doing what I'm calling a "Camp Sandwich," still writing every day and tracking my progress even though I'm between the April and July sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo.  That gives me two months of writing between the two sessions, basically.

I didn't reach my goal of 50,000 words in April, but I probably should have set that a little bit lower.  I did, however, write nearly every day, and got a substantial ways into my new novel.

Below is my daily word count in April.  As you can see, it's a little all over the map, but there were only a few days where I didn't write at all.  I'm pleased with that.

I'm pretty proud of my progress so far, and looking forward to working more on this novel.  If I can keep up writing daily during the Camp Sandwich, I think I can finish the first draft of the novel before July's session even starts.  That would free me up to work on Ruby Ransome in July, and then after July is over I can go back and revise the first draft of Amnesia.

So far the post-Camp writing is going well.  I've written every day since Camp ended, and actually have made major progress on the novel, even writing several thousand words on one of those days when I really hit my stride.  The following screenshot is from yesterday, but you can see that it's going well:

Because I'm continuing a project, I raised my word count goal to the length I'm targeting for the overall novel, and brought my Camp NaNoWriMo word count over once April was over.  That's why the graph looks weird.  But I thought it was the best way to track my word count, by continuing with what I already have.  (I really wish the NaNoWriMo site offered a way to enter the starting word count though, as it would make it much easier to track ongoing projects.)

In any case, I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far, and hoping to keep it up throughout the next couple months or until the novel is finished!

The Last Day of April's Camp NaNoWriMo

Today is the last day of April's session of Camp NaNoWriMo.  For Camp you set your own goal, and since I thought I could maintain the same pace as during November, I set my goal at 50,000 words.

I am dismally behind.

This image cracks me up.  It's the daily tracker part of the stats page on the NaNoWriMo site.  It does the math and tracks how much you need to write every day to achieve your goal, and shows you how much of that you've written.

And... well, yeah.  There's very little chance I could write that much in one day.  Even if I tried, I'd probably burn myself out and not touch my novel again for months, if ever.  Which is exactly the opposite of what I want to do.

So I'm not too sorry.  I've been writing every day and making good progress, and I like my story and intend to keep writing it.  I'll keep writing during May and June, and hopefully finish up the novel during July's session of Camp.

I'll update later with my final word count for the month of April.  It won't be 50,000, but maybe I can at least get close to 40,000.

Camp NaNoWriMo April 2024 and Ongoing Plans to Write

We're just over a third of the way through the month right now, and so far I've been able to keep up the habit of writing nearly every day.  There were a couple of days where I didn't write, or only wrote a few words before petering out, but I've largely maintained the habit.

I'd done really well maintaining a daily writing habit last November, but I lost it again in December, and then of course with all of the events of this year so far (my mom's hip replacement, my dad's cardiac procedure, my cat's diagnosis of diabetes, and the doll show), I never made the time to pick it up again.

So it feels really good to be writing daily again, and I hope to continue the habit throughout Camp NaNoWriMo's April 2024 session and (hopefully) beyond.

What's interesting, though, is that I've been writing a completely different story than what I was working on in November (and have been working on intermittently for over a decade).  I came up with the idea for a new story just a few days before Camp started, and decided to run with it.  I knew if I didn't write it now, I wouldn't ever get back to it, so here I am.

It's turning out to be a good story idea, and I'm not sorry.  I feel like it has a lot of promise.

Camp is a much quieter affair than full-blown November NaNoWriMo, of course.  Normally we don't have any write-ins during Camp at all, but we'd talked about starting up a year-round one after the holidays.  After the doll show, with Camp looming, I decided now was the time to do so.  And while it's proving to be helpful, I also feel like a lot of the impetus is on me, since it's only that one write-in once a week.  The rest of the week, I'm doing it on my own.

I'm planning to continue writing even after April is over.  I'll have the weekly write-in to help keep me going, but if I do fall off the wagon again, at least I'll have the next Camp session in July to get me back on track again.

I hope everyone else's Camp NaNoWriMo is going well too!