NaNoWriMo

Pre-August Camp Update

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The August session of Camp NaNoWriMo (http://campnanowrimo.org/) begins in about three and a half days. I finished revising my manuscript weeks ago, so hopefully I’ll focus more on Camp this month.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure I have any ideas fleshed-out enough to start working on in three days. I do have ideas though, and I’m going to give it my best shot, but if I sense trying to get this thing written out in 30 days or less is ruining my manuscript, I won’t hesitate to give up on NaNoWriMo and let my project breathe freely.

I’ve turned my thoughts to this project over the last few days, and I keep a list of random thoughts and ideas relating to it. It’s a sort of brainstorming thing I do; I have my main characters down pretty well and I know the basics of the story, but I’m not sure how it’ll get from one point to another. So I spend time thinking about the setting, the world in which this story takes place, and things that exist in it and how these characters would react to them. I don’t always use everything I write down, and in fact much of it never comes up at all, but it’s there in this world and it makes the world a little bit more alive, which in turn makes the characters a little bit more real. Hopefully I’ll have enough to start working with in three days.

I’ve started going back over the archives at QueryShark (http://queryshark.blogspot.com/). So far I haven’t come across anything I didn’t read before (maybe I did finish reading over them and I just don’t remember) but it’s worth a second read anyway. I’ve already stumbled across one tip I actually don’t follow in my own query letter. I feel like I have a good reason for not following it, but don’t we always feel that way about a mistake we’re in the process of making? I was sure I was right yesterday, but I’ve been thinking it over and now I’m leaning toward “maybe I’m wrong”. But I’ll keep reading the archives and writing down anything my query does contrary to the Shark’s advice, and then I’ll go over it a few times. Obviously the Shark won’t always be right and every agent has different opinions (which is why it’s important to check each agent’s page for what they do or don’t like) but that blog has a lot of priceless knowledge and information and is probably right more often than not. I’m also actually considering submitting my own query now, if I feel like the archives alone aren’t getting my query to where I’d like it to be.

That’s about all going on in David World right now. What are you up to? Are you participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month?

June Camp NaNoWriMo Final Update

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As you can probably tell, things didn’t go as planned for Camp NaNoWriMo. I apologize for not giving more updates, but the fact is there’s nothing to update on. I wrote over 10,000 words for my camp project and I’m actually starting to really enjoy the story and the characters, and I do plan to finish it, but I’ve been working on revising another manuscript. I should finish that tonight or tomorrow, and then I’m going to focus on querying agents for that as well as writing.

I haven’t given up on The Lament of the Land, but I did put it on the backburner. Revising needed to come first, and sure, it cost me Camp NaNoWriMo, but there’s another session in August. I will hopefully be taking part in that, though I’m not sure yet if I have any ideas that are developed well enough. I have over a month to plan, though, and I hope to see you then. Thanks to anyone who took even a passing interest in my Camp progress or in my blog in general, and hopefully in August I’ll have a solid idea I can devote all of my time to.

Moving on from CaNaNoWriMo (I just made that up, I think I like it), revising went well. I’m almost ashamed I submitted the manuscript to anyone as it was, there were way too many commas and a lot of repetitive sentences. In the end I cut about 1000 more words, bringing the total to a near-solid 50,000. More important than word count, I feel like this draft is much stronger and more coherent, and it was a great pleasure to revisit this story and these characters and to spend time in this world again. I hope in the near future you’ll all be able to pick up a copy and read it and see for yourself, I can’t wait to share this world with you.

Camp NaNoWriMo Week One Progress Report

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The first week of Camp NaNoWriMo ended a few days ago. As of today I’m a little behind, but I’m okay with that. I’ve been busy revising a finished manuscript and I’ve made some great progress there. I’d like to get caught up on this project soon, I’m still confident I can finish on time and with the right number of words.

For those participating, how are you doing?

Camp NaNoWriMo Day 1

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Yesterday was day 1 of the first session of Camp NaNoWriMo 2012. Here’s a brief summary of how the day went for me:

I kicked things off by downloading the 30-day trial of Scrivener for Windows. I had taken part in the beta testing and experienced a very unfortunate saving bug (to the tune of the program not saving anything at all) which was not a very good first impression. This trial version is singing a very different tune. I like the organization a lot. For this particular writing project I’ve been busy since last November, writing detailed character profiles and histories, the history of the world in which the story takes place, descriptions of various creatures that inhabit it, drawing maps of cities and regions etc. All of these are things which must exist in this world but not necessarily be written out in excruciating detail. Scrivener is the perfect software for this as it allows you to do all of the above outside of the actual manuscript. Before I was using three or four different apps and programs, but Scrivener keeps all of this info in one place. I’m not sure yet if this is a convenience worth the program’s $40 price tag, but I guess I’ll see in the coming days.

As for the manuscript itself, I wrote a little over 500 words. It’s a very modest start but I’m not too worried about it yet (for my first NaNo attempt I didn’t begin writing until November 5 and I wrote well under my daily limit until the last week, during which I wrote enough to catch up and finish on November 28th or so). I am hoping to write a little bit more than that from now on.

As for the finer details, my project is tentatively titled The Lament of the Land and it’s a fantasy story. I have a pretty good idea what I want out of it and where I think it’ll go, but I’m looking forward to any surprises it may have to offer me.

I’ve mentioned before that I like to listen to music while I work on first drafts. This project’s playlist consists of Yuki Kajiura’s soundtracks to .hack//SIGN and Tsubasa Chronicle and Joe Hisaishi’s soundtracks to various Studio Ghibli movies (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away come to mind).

Are you participating in camp right now? How about the next session this August? What are you working on? Let me know your thoughts. If you want to keep up on my camp progress you can find my profile here: http://www.campnanowrimo.org/campers/crackedthesky

Tips for Camp NaNoWriMo

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If you didn’t already know, the first session of Camp NaNoWriMo begins this Friday. Camp NaNoWriMo is about the same as regular NaNoWriMo, just in the summer, and there are two sessions (The other one being in August). The goal is to write a complete 50,000+ word manuscript in 30 days or less.

My second manuscript is a product of National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve attempted every session since. I’m going to give some advice to those new to or curious about the process.

NaNoWriMo is a prompt. Its main purpose is to prompt those who otherwise wouldn’t write into doing so, but if you’re already a writer (or even if you aren’t) NaNoWriMo can still come in handy. It’s a lot of fun and adds a little bit more to the writing experience.

Don’t take it too seriously. It’s not about winning or losing, and really there’s no way to lose. Say you pass the 50k word mark, but it took you two months to get there. Who cares? You wrote a book, didn’t you? How is that anything but winning?

Don’t be afraid to fail the deadlines or break the rules. For Camp last year I had an idea I was kicking around, and I decided to wait about a month and a half for Camp to start to begin work on it. It turned out the project didn’t go where I thought it would, and I ended up scrapping it and now I plan to start over. I love my idea, but because I waited so long to start I didn’t realize until it was too late that it wouldn’t go as planned, and because of the word count I tried to force it out anyway. I ended up with a huge mess. Needless to say, I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo that time. I would have been far better off starting the project as soon as I felt ready and taking the time it needed me to take. I still would’ve failed NaNoWriMo, but I might have had something to show for it.

A friend of mine started a project last November and got a few thousand words in, and while he continues his project, he definitely didn’t meet the deadline. I told him about Camp and he expressed concern that it’s against the rules to continue an old project. I told him it would be better to participate anyway, despite being disqualified from the beginning. Again, it’s better to be disqualified and have a finished book than to not attempt it and have nothing.

Remember to have fun. If it stops being fun, if it feels like your project isn’t going the right way because you’re caught up in rules and deadlines, just take a step back and decide whether continuing with NaNoWriMo is the right way to go. After my Camp fiasco last year, I was able to identify when the same thing was happening to a different project in November. I didn’t hesitate to give up on NaNoWriMo, and come January I had a novella I was a lot happier with than I would have been if I had forced it out a few weeks prior.

With that all said, I’ll be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this year. You can follow my progress via my page here, and I’ll also try to update my blog with how it’s going. What about you? Are you participating this year? Do you have any advice for NaNo newcomers and veterans? Care to share your Camp profile page? Leave a comment.