Jo Linsdell

Showing posts with label Camp NaNoWriMo. Show all posts

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?

Throughout July I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm using the challenge to work on an old November NaNoWriMo project that had the working title of Twice. My goal is to rewrite the manuscript and end up with a completed 50K novel b the end of the month.

As today is the 15th July, today marks the half way mark of this challenge. Here's a recap of how it's been going so far:

The first week was awesome! The words were flying, and I got ahead of my word count goal, despite having a couple of slow days along the way. In fact, I discovered that having slow days is totally fine. For example, on the first Sunday of the month museums and some tourists sites are completely free to visit here in Rome, and so I took my kids to explore the Palatino. We had a lovely day exploring old ruins, visiting the museum, and learning about Roman history. We even got to hear the sound check for the Pink Floyd concert that was happening in the evening at Circo Massimo (located right below the Palatino). All in all a pretty awesome day. Not so great for my word count though. In fact I wrote nothing that day.

Here's a few pics from the trip:

Week number 2 involved slow days too. Unfortunately it didn't balance itself out with turbo days though and so I went from being head with my word count to falling behind. I know that a couple of good days will put me back on track though. Not in panic mode yet!

With the kids being off school for the summer break my days are pretty full as it is. Most of my writing has been done in the evening once they're in bed asleep. Only problem with writing in the evening is that I spend all day trying to make them tired so they go to bed, and then I'm tired too.... probably even more than they are.

We have made some fun creative projects together though, including these fab toilet roll puppets. We spent the morning making them, and then the kids spent the afternoon planning a puppet show with them :) Apparently we need to make more of these (these need more characters for their puppet shows).

Toilet roll puppets #CreativeKids #Kidscraft

Although I'm now playing catch up with my word count, I have made huge progress in the first half of this challenge that will, hopefully, mean I meet my goal of 50k by the end of the month. I've done a lot of brainstorming, planning, and general thinking about the story. I've outlined some sub plots that I'm writing in, developed some of the secondary characters, and made some big changes to the initial story idea. One big change is the title of the book. Twice just doesn't fit anymore. The book has taken a new direction and so I've been coming up with ideas for a new title. I'm still not 100% decided on what the title will be, but I've narrowed it down for just a few.

This is my current word count: