When it comes to NaNoWriMo, whether it’s during November or a Camp session, most people have a hard time getting the words to flow as a steady stream.
This is not the case for me this time.
I’ll be going away the last week of July and while there will be Internet access, I won’t be bringing my laptop. So my goal this month was to write 50,000 words by July 22nd. That’s about 2,500 words a day.
Normally, my goal is 2,000 words a day so an extra 500 didn’t seem to be so bad. The truth is, it’s not bad at all.
My stats have been pretty steady. There have been a few days where I was able to write way more than 2,500 simply because I was on a roll and needed to finish the chapter.
Day 1: 3,005 words
Day 2: 2,629 words
Day 3: 2,549 words
Day 4: 4,939 words
Day 5: 1,735 words
See that spike on day 4?
Yeah, I finished the novel.
Before I started writing on day 4, I realized that I was nearing the end of the story. I thought I had about two chapters left and figured the story would end between 63,000 words and 65,000 words. Well, I wrote two more chapters and my total is 63, 278.
It seems a little short, I know. While the novel is “complete” and the ending is written, it’s not really finished.
As most of you know, I’m continuing my fantasy novel Hunter which already had 50,000 words tagged onto it from last July’s Camp NaNo session.
As I read through those first 50,000 words to prepare myself for this Camp, I kept a list of editing notes. Might as well, right? Well, the pacing of the story is completely… non-existent, I would say.
The story moves way too fast and Cat, the main character, doesn’t help it much. She’s supposed to be indecisive about right and wrong, her family and their supposed enemy, but she ends up switching teams just about instantly.
If you read it, you can totally tell that I wrote the novel for a NaNo session.
Needless to say, the novel should be longer than 63,000 words and it will be. During my editing I’ll be adding scenes, which will be interesting, to say the least.
In the meantime, Hunter is done for now. I was looking forward to working on it throughout the month, but I just can’t see to get myself to edit during a NaNo session because I’m not writing the actual words. I’m weird, I know, but that’s just how I feel.
So, for the rest of the month starting yesterday (that’s where day 5’s words came from–pay no attention for the lack of 2,500 words on that day), I’ll be working on short stories. I figured this is a good opportunity for me to catch up on some Short Story Sundays. I also hope to submit to a few contests here and there this summer, so I can write stories to submit to those and magazines and such.
So, thank you guys for voting Hunter on that poll. I have another completed first draft to add to my list (I have a lot of editing to do…) and I’m getting that extra time (more like extra push) to get some side stories done in an attempt to get my foot through the door in the publishing world.
I think everything worked out quite nicely.
How is Camp NaNo going for you? How is your current project moving along, whether you’re participating in Camp or not?
