Camp Nano - Deleting chapters makes progress!

Do not fear the title, fellow readers.
A couple days ago my inner-organizer tapped me on the shoulder and successfully pulled off a distraction. It pointed out that my chapters were all weird lengths and didn't end at appropriate cut-off points. It annoyed me by saying it didn't match my outline anymore. That voice was just...making me crazy.

I shut that little voice up by deleting my chapter folders in my Scrivener project. (<---- Example image woot )

Victory was mine! I no longer have to wonder if a scene should be in chapter 12 or 14 because guess what? I don't have chapters anymore! All I have now are a list of scenes labeled with the character POV.

Organization can still be found, as I categorized my scenes by the Three Act Structure, with sub-folders dictating the beginning, middle, and end of each act.

But this puts an end to an experiment I had tried for the past three months - can I successfully plan out how many chapters I need and thus, sort the appropriate scenes into those chapters before I write them?

And the answer is no. No way.

Once I get into the motion of writing again, brand new scenes and conversations pop up that I couldn't plan for. And honestly the story comes out better that way! Camp has really taught me that allowing myself freedom while writing makes it easier to continue my story and it is actually fun!
I can experiment with my scenes because I'm not trying so hard to make them fit my perfect little outline
....which obviously wasn't so perfect if I needed more chapters anyway.
Live and learn, right?

Later today I'll be helping my cabin mates bunker down and finish the rest of their word counts with sprints, prompts, and other writing shenanigans. For two whole hours! I'm spent the morning figuring out the scenes I want to work on myself and I'm feeling pretty prepared.

So seriously, if I play my cards right I could complete ACT TWO TODAY!!!!

Craziness! That's two-thirds of my first draft done! And all those words are ones I like and the story fits the plot. 

After climbing the mountain of words I've already written, at this point, I can actually see the ending of my novel in the far distance. It's an actual place, it's real! Not some Narnia fantasy world that I've dreamed up and then been tricked as it disappears back into the wardrobe.
Oh no. Not this time.

I can reach if I just keep going, so it's time refill my coffee cup, blare some k-pop and continue to write until this manuscript is finished!

!!! ~ Winning Camp NaNoWriMo 2015 ~ !!!

Sha-bam 'o rama, people. 

Let's have a look at the beautiful winner's dashboard. Bring it up!

(I'm totally wearing the same shirt right now).

It's been six months since I started my novel back in November, with the original National Novel Writing Month. The story has been re-plotted and outline at least five times. But I have to say, I haven't had as much fun writing my story than during camp. There is just something about the freedom and flexible goals during this month that has just set my imagination on fire. 

I really blew myself away on how productive and diligent I've been to write on my novel. I love the new twists and turns the story has taken. Most of all, I'm so grateful for the prep-work I did in March with the help of my Mieky, my sister-in-law. Our girl vacation in the woods helped me develop my characters and let me learn more about them, thus helping my story overall. 

And the month is not over, ladies and gentlemen. Camp NaNo is still happening. That means no matter if I met surpassed my own writing goals, my book isn't done and my imagination isn't finished with me yet. The urge to keep writing is still in my blood!

I'm sticking around for the entirety of camp, willing to support my cabin mates to meet their word count goals too! 

Now that I've tasted the sweet success of victory, I'm GREEDY. I want to see the end of my first draft. I NEED to finish my book! There is still plenty of writing to be done and word sprints to participate in!!

So for some cool and fun stats:

My entire manuscript to date:   46,749 words 

Words deleted this month:  8,540 words

Chapters added:    5 

Estimated words left for completion:   20k

I think my novel is gonna be in the ballpark of 60k when I'm done with it, which is pretty good for a YA fantasy / sci-fi genre. So yeah - I talk of finishing my first draft, but I'm not close to that yet. 

BUT.

I'm 20k  closer to it because of participating in camp. And that makes me so freaking happy!!!!!

CARTWHEELS!!!

Camp NaNo - Stretching toward the 20k goal

I just updated my word count on the camp nanowrimo website, only 300 words away from 15k.
I could totally be a winner, like, right now if I wanted to. But again I'm confronted by the victory being too soon - it's only the middle of April. I have half a month left to write stuff!

My heart is starting to flutter again with anticipation - my dream of getting closer to FINISHING my first draft. It's getting closer, within my grasp! Should I dare to hope that I could achieve that in the next 15 days?

Honestly I'm gonna go for it. To heck with it all, I'm going for it!
Here's to a new finish line of 20,000 words!

PS. This is also a short post because its basically midnight and I'm totally drained. Peace out and keep writing :P

Camp NaNo - Oh my gosh 10k

It's DAY 12 of Camp NaNoWriMo. And this morning, I actually broke the  10,000 word  barrier.

Check out them stats!

Yeah, those are my stats. I am so proud. And happy. And highly caffeinated. And constantly staring outside at the beautiful sunshine and weather, only to continue sitting the same chair for 3 hours writing on my laptop. 

Life is good! 

Today I totally appreciate my decision to increase my camp word count goal to 15k - at first I thought that I would lose interest in writing, or that playing video games would have a higher priority over writing. Or yah know, MOVING to a different country? But hahah, self! I tricked you! I tricked you into writing a novel and totally falling in love with the writing process all over again. 

So far this weekend has been ginormously productive. Last night I was doing word sprints with my sister-in-law (and cabin buddies, I know you were there in spirit!). In an hour and a half, I wrote over 1600 words. These words are still in my first draft mind you, so they weren't that horrible either.  That's a lot of words! That's like, doing REAL nanowrimo and reaching the REAL word count for the day. 

Here's a high-five to Mieky as well! She's broken the 2000 word mark while only participating in Camp NaNo for like 3 days so far. This is day 4, for her. WOW. You are awesome girl!

In addition to smashing through some awesome word counts, I've made great progress on other parts of my novel. Three new documents are added to the "Research" folder on my Scrivener project: Magic System, Overall Plot and a special document titled "Hellgates."

Mysterious...

Now I actually know how my characters can use magic, how they can develop it, and even some of the problems they can solve by using it. My world is starting to make sense too - I'm adding notes to my world building documents and matching it up with my magic system. I went through all the "important terms" I've developed through my story, matched that to my magic system and world, and created SIX IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS that define the purpose of my story. 

I know the purpose of the story!

I know the ENDING of my story as well!

I couldn't have asked for a better experience at camp this April, but it's not even halfway over yet. I am really excited to see what I can accomplish before this month is over. Like, the next decisions I could make might be:  

1. Should I raise my word count to 20k??
2. Should I keep stretching myself to complete Act 2??

Maybe I'll stretch myself even farther and imagine what it would be like to finish my first draft??

The possibilities are endless, almost like this blog post. Which I should probably finish now and get off the computer for a while - to stretch and make sure my legs are still attached. 

I also want to give a shout-out to all my writing buddies and cabin mates, for keeping the word count high and for WRITING! You can do this! 

Camp NaNo - I can't count

Like, at all.

Last night I went over to my sister-in-law's house to do some hang'n out girl time and write on my novel. In the middle of eating a cupcake and drinking hot chocolate, I asked her:

          "Why didn't you join Camp NaNoWriMo? You can totally reach 10k by the end of April," I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows. "you know that world building and plot notes totally count for your total word count, right?"
          She stares at me with an apple wedge lodged in one side of her mouth. Her fingers started clicking on the laptop in front of her and I can barely make out the words, "Yeah, so how do you sign up?"

I was totally excited to have another member join our cabin and I was babbling about all the things you can do for the month of April. But then her next question struck me:
          "I know you are continuing your novel from November, so how are you keeping track of the new words you're typing?"
          Me, being totally ingenious and saying the first smart thing that comes to my mind, "Oh well I just copy/paste all the new words to a separate word document to keep track of the numbers. I still do my real writing in Scrivener."

Total lies!
What I've really been doing is just keeping a text document of my new numbers for each chapter and adding them up each day. Word count!

And thus, today, I decided to take my own advice: I copied all my new writing into a word document to better keep track of my word count numbers. Because, yah let's face it: sometimes I'm smart.

Totally not, because I can't count!
When I looked at my word doc, with all the copied words into it (even deleting bullet points and such), I had a new word count of OVER 6300 words!

Yes, even a muppet can count better than I can. 

I stare at my screen in disbelief. I must have copied over something I shouldn't have, I logically reason to myself. So instead I recount my numbers in my text doc.
Holy crap, they MATCH my word document.
I counted wrong this whole time.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Wait, I mean YAAAAAAH!

Lucky me, for surprising myself with more words than I thought. Go me, yeah! 

So let this be a lesson to you guys, who might be bad with math: Don't try to add up a new word count with an old document!

Camp NaNo - The eighth day decision!!

I want to share my beautiful NaNo target icon with you! Do you see, the arrow is almost pointing to the fifty percent mark? I've almost written 5,000 words on my novel in a week!
WOO HOO!

You know, as cool as that makes me feel and even though I'm super proud of myself to be reaching my word count goals, so far this victory seems...too easy.

The Camp Nano website is pretty cool because it gives you a lot of statistics on how you write every day: what is your daily average needed to meet your goals, and what you actually write on average every day. My average daily word count is around  530 words. 

That seems like a nice amount of words to write every day, and it takes me about 2 hours...maybe less... to accomplish that. Now, what if I continue writing 530 words a day?

That means I could reach 15,000 words at the end of April.

Hmm. That calculation made me stop and think for a while. As I drank another cup of morning coffee, I thought about why I joined Camp Nanowrimo in the first place:  so I could re-focus my writing efforts and put some nice work into my novel. 

And you know what I loved about November NaNo? The pressure. 

No I'm serious!

The whole month felt big and scary, with a huge overwhelming goal ahead of me that I've never faced before. And writing every day became massively important to me. I needed to reach that goal, for myself. Once I won, I felt such an amazing accomplishment and I NEVER want to lose that feeling. 

Now I'm haunted with thoughts like, could reaching my word count so soon be...demotivating? Would I actually stop writing on my novel once I won with 10k? Even if camp wasn't over yet?

Something twisted in my stomach as I thought about these things. I don't wanna stop writing. I want to take myself as far as I can, in the time I have. Everyone has busy lives, and mine is no excuse. My cabin mates and writing buddies are all trying their best...maybe I should push myself harder too?

So I made the decision!

*** Today I increased my Camp NaNo wordcount to 15,000 words ***

As proof, here is my new little bulls eye. He looks smaller, but honestly this image makes me feel amazing! Already I feel more motivation to keep writing, to reach farther for myself. 

Already I've done a lot of extra work to Chapters 1-9 of my book. This is considered to be "Act 1", where characters discover the plot situation and are pushed into the new world. I've overcome so many obstacles already: figuring out which points of view to use, how many chapters to write, and even what parts to RIP OUT of the book. 

And because of everything I've done and of how far I've come, I'm happier with my novel than ever before. I seriously feel amazing right now! Bring on the coffee and let's write!!!!

Camp NaNoWriMo - Fast and Furious Four!!

I'm so happy that day four of camp is on a SATURDAY, 

because this means I have time to catch up with my word count and 

actually have FIVE whole glorious hours of silence to myself and my computer. 

With no distractions, phone calls, or itching reminders to get my work done.

~

Because it's flipping weekend! 

~

The day is only half over and I've already updated my word count to....2,570 words 

Read that number and throw confetti into the air with me!

Honestly yeah, I can get excited about this number because my writing goal for this month is only 10k, while other people are tackling the normal novel sizes of 50k and beyond! 

But feeling good about my story is really important to me. And I want to encourage my other cabin mates and writing buddies to keep on writing! Read the little "care packages" of advice in your camp inbox, especially the one today about comparing your story to gardening:

Create some writing compost!

 The beginning stages of your first draft will be messy, dirty, and a little stinky. But it's full of things that will make the core of your story better. Sooner or later, you'll see something beautiful bloom from all the compost you laid down!

Time to join the campfire circle

The first day of April is now upon me, along with the beginning of a new month-long writing journey. Since the writing camp is more lenient than November, we are allowed to make smaller word count goals and extend the things we want to write for. This month is about being creative and getting your imagination flowing on any story that floats your boat. 

So that's what I want to do: be creative and continue to love my story. Thus when I add up word count this month, it will be words from my novel + world building + whatever the heck I feel like adding to my Scrivner project :P

In order to track my progress correctly, here are my Scrivener project starting numbers:

Novel:          29, 607

Research:       1,560

Characters:    2,813

And for the month of April, I just need to add 10k. No problem, bring it ON!!!!