CampNaNoWriMo Wrap Up | Jo Linsdell

CampNaNoWriMo Wrap Up

#CampNaNoWriMo Wrap Up


In July I took part in the CampNaNoWriMo challenge for the first time. My goal for the month was to rewrite an old NaNoWriMo novel (working name Twice) and turn it into a complete 50K novel.

This is how I was doing at the half way mark: http://www.jolinsdell.com/2016/07/campnanowrimo-half-way-mark.html

Unfortunately things went a bit down hill from there. I didn't collect my winners certificate but I'm still counting it as a success. Here's why...

1) It was my first time trying to do a NaNoWriMo challenge in July. My house has been full of kids (on summer break), it's been super hot here in Rome, and a bunch of other things that made me realise it might not be the best time of the year to try doing such a demanding challenge. Despite all that I did make huge progress with my project. I didn't hit 50K, but I did write over 30K.

2) Twice became Just Love Me. This is one of the biggest breakthroughs of the month. Whilst rewriting I made some big changes to the story and decided to give it a new direction. The new working title is a much better fit for the story now.

3) The big reason why my word count stopped increasing is that I decided that I needed to make more changes to the story. I basically need to go back to the beginning and rework the plot outline. This is actually a really good thing, because now I have a much clearer idea of what the story is about, and what I want to happen to each character. 

4) I love the characters in this book. Working on this project again was like meeting up with old friends, and after a month back together I'm now super excited about giving them the story they deserve. 

So, I'm going to be doing another rewrite from the beginning, which might make you think I failed big time with this challenge, but really this means the challenge was a HUGE success. Thanks to CampNaNoWriMo I now have; a new title, a clear idea of my story, my characters, and a new motivation to get it written. Some of the 30K I wrote in July will be used in the new version too, and even if it isn't it helped me get to this point with the story.

Watch the day by day challenge report here:


Did you do CampNaNoWriMo in July? How did you do? 

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