NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month is a world-wide event run every November. Camp NaNo is held every April and July as an additional challenge for the writers that want to set their own creative goal.
I set my goal for April camp at 20,000 words because you have to put some number there, but my actual goals to achieve in April are:
- Finish writing AND editing DragonSky.
- Make progress editing The Merlin Paradox.
Let’s camp!
I was going to initially post day by day updates in this chapter, but I ended up saying those things in the chat with the other campers. So, here’s a quick summary.
Week 1
Lots of excitement. Total written: 5,035.
I joined a few groups, not knowing which one would be active. At first, all were active. It was quite overwhelming.
Week 2
The chats calmed down. Total written: 13,651.
Participated in the first camp event:
The first Nanolympics
Our group placed in all three categories. My book cover for DragonSky won 3rd place. Yay. Got sidetracked and edited a bit of The Merlin Paradox. Oh, well. It’s not like it’s a bad thing.
Day 14
I finished DragonSky. I have a ton of editing in front of me, but it feels good to get to a point where you think, “This could be the last line in this book.”
There’s another event coming by the end of this week. I’ll be in full edit mode by then. The two things I might write for the event are:
1. A short story idea I came up with recently: an origin story for teleporting snails.
2. The Merlin Paradox could use an extra chapter in between The Merlinians and Glassy Plains. I might tackle it. Might.
Week 3
Good progress made. Total written: 18,175.
I did yet another character arc analysis for The Merlin Paradox (The goal. The lie. The truth) and realized that for The truth part to land properly with Seri’s character, some events need to happen in a different order. This means MORE REWRITING. I’m really tired of rewriting. But I think it’s necessary.
The second Nanolympics
Two groups I’m in participated: SteamBuild and the Bard Squad. One of our members placed second in sprints. We placed first in the one-hour marathon. My drawing of Ansgarde and Larimar (Dragonsky) won 3rd place and that’s really cool.
April 25
Camp nano goal met (20k words). Dragonsky written in full and mostly edited.
Week four
The third Nanolympics
Two groups participated again. My drawing of Ruby (The Merlin Paradox) got a good amount of likes, though it didn’t win.
The Bard Squad – we ran a torch relay for 29 hours! No other group ran as long. It was fun. I’d love to do it again. I got a ton of editing done during my 6 hours.
The Bard Squad – one of our members won the Best Line category. It went something like “You don’t just turn into a lesbian, it’s not like being a werewolf or something.” 😀
April 27
Round 2 of Open Novella Contest results are in AND DRAGONSKY IS IN BUSINESS. Whoohoo!!!!! Now, I need to finish editing and submit it for the last milestone by May 5th.
Apr 30
Last day of camp.
Wordcount met – 22,525 written during camp.
DragonSky is written in full. Still a little more editing needed. Will be done in the next few days.
The Merlin Paradox – I wrote the chapter that I wanted to insert, but then realized that I need to change the order of events. And so that chapter plus a couple more will need to be rewritten. Again. Sigh. That’s the beauty of editing.
In other news, I continued working on the drawing of Ruby – it’s now on the new cover of The Merlin Paradox.
