Photo credit: Unsplash at Pixabay
That’s right, folks. Somehow an entire year has passed since my first Camp NaNoWriMo in April 2016. How is that even possible?
I might ask the same about the idea of trying Camp NaNo at this time, this year. How will that even be possible? After all, I’ve been trying to write 10,000 words every month since last time — with the support of the great Project 10K challenge over at Flights of Fancy — and failing to meet that level of writing or editing most months. I barely cracked 5,000 words this month. And yet I’ve set my goal for April at 15,000 words. How nuts is that?
Plus I’ve decided to focus on writing and editing short stories, getting really serious about the idea of sending them off for publication. It only belatedly occurs to me that writing 15,000 words of short stories means wrangling, what, 6 to 8 different story lines and plots and character arcs. That’s going to be even harder than writing 15,000 words of a single novel that I already have a decent outline for. Oh no!
Plus, my work life just went crackerjacks. My big research project, after being repeatedly delayed by a downright Biblical series of plagues, is finally ramping up… And my project coordinator just quit. The one who I’ve been depending on to delegate most of the day-to-day organizing and scheduling stuff. So now all of April, I’ll be doing her job as well as mine, until I’m able to hire a new person and train them. Oh, and did I mention that we’re hosting a big workshop at my center next week?
Plus…
No, that’s enough pluses for now. No more whining, or making excuses, or feeling sorry for myself. I’m heading off to camp with my head held high and my heart filled with positive vibes. I’ve got a wonderful cabin set up with some of my favorite fellow writers, including most of the people in my cabin last year and a couple new folks. I just know we’re going to have a good time.
I apologize ahead of time to the rest of my blogger friends out there, because I won’t have much time at all to post stories or participate in flash fiction challenges, or to read and comment on all of your blogs. But I’ll do what I can here and there, and I’ll be back full force on May 1! Well, I might take a long nap first. May 2nd, let’s say. Or maybe… Well, some time in May, definitely.
Good luck to everyone else participating in Camp NaNo. And to all of you writers and poets and photographers and other creative types out there —
Tales from Eneana 
Have fun! Write hard! Enjoy!
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WOO HOO!
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Good luck with the Camp Nano. You can finish the 15 k!
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Thanks! I’m sure going to try — starting (gulp) today!
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Great! I too got in the camp! Let’s do this!
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Yay! What goal did you set for yourself? So far I have written a big fat ZERO words, but the first morning is not over yet.
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Good luck with hitting your targets. I oughtn’t to say this; it could have an opposite effect, but I’m going to say it anyway. The new story that starts posting on Wednesday 5th April on crimsonprose (Can of Worms) weighed in at 52k words (which is unusually short for me) and I wrote it in the 28 days of February. So, it can be done.
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Wow, that’s amazing — good for you, Crispina! And you already edited the story too? That’s crazy fast. I’m not nearly that good yet. For me, it depends a lot on how much work (that is, job-work) I have that month. My first NaNo in November 2015, I was only working part-time. Or rather, part of the month. Basically I worked constantly on my job (morning to bedtime) for 13 of the days, and worked somewhat less constantly on writing my novel for 17 of the days. In those 17 days, I ended up writing just over 60,000 words of my novel. So flat out word count, I can do. But I’m ending up having to revise almost every one of those chapters because in the long run, I had to make significant changes to make the plot and character arcs work. (Or rather, I *hope* that they will work in this new version, I still have no proof of that yet!) Anyway, the novel is feeling a bit bogged down, so it feels good to turn to short stories for a while and actually FINISH something for a change!
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Oh, and this month I have more job-work than ever, so that doesn’t bode well. Still, I am trying to be very good about devoting as much of weekends to writing as I can.
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Well, I repeat, good luck. I can’t say I was distracted by another job. I was still uploading and editing King’s Wife (I think it suffered a but . . . went all soggy in the middle); I was doing the chapter graphics for that as well; and I was out once a week with the new toy (camera), which then required processing the photos when I came home, then researching as need be before posting them to blog. But basically I’ve a major dislike of February, so it was a way of immersing myself so I wouldn’t notice the month. (So much easier to write when it’s cold and bleak outside!)
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“Soggy in the middle” is a great description of my novel right now — bloated, too. Well, I’m glad you were able to distract yourself sufficiently with fun stuff like writing and photography to get yourself through February. Back when I lived in snow country, I could really relate: gray, nasty, depressing month. Hope things are looking up now!
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Killer! Have a ball. Art hard indeed. “Play!” Bill
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Thanks Bill! Slogging through critiques and tearing apart a beloved short story right now… Not exactly fun, but hopefully the end result will be worth it. Cheers!
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You do have a lot on your plate, but, being you, I’ve no doubt you’ll sail through April not only unscathed but glowing from your success! Whether you go for the short stories or decide to continue your novel, I’m sure you’ll reach your targets and enjoy yourself along the way. Work sounds particularly manic, so I hope things ease off there very soon.
Have a wonderful, creative and successful April, Joy.
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Doing my best — thanks for the pep talk, Millie!
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Sorry if it came across as a pep talk. I just wanted to say I hope you have a great month writing and got a bit carried away with commiserating. Lol. 🙂
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Oh no, don’t apologize — this is just the right time to give me a pep talk, I appreciate it!
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Hope it’s going well for you. I’m a day or two behind so trying to catch up before I’m completely behind 🙂
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Hope you’re catching up. I started out strong the first weekend but fell woefully behind during a hectic work week. And now it looks like I might have to work all weekend too to meet next week’s deadlines… 😦 Hopefully I can catch up next weekend.
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Yeah I’m on track. Trying to tie other prompts into the NaPoWriMo prompts as they’re very general this year. But behind on some of the usual challenges. Good luck with work and catching up.
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Good for you! I am falling behind, stuck on work stuff today and maybe tomorrow too. I am hoping to squeeze in some writing during the week, but that seems unlikely…
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