Hello everyone!
This a new series I want to add to my blog where I basically talk about how my writing’s going. This month, I’m taking part of Camp NanoWrimo and since we’re officially half way through the month, I decided to give you guys a quick update about how it’s been going for me.
For those who don’t know, July is when this writing program called Camp NanoWrimo occurs. Camp NanoWrimo is a subset of the annual writing program called NanoWrimo that challenges participants to try to write an entire novel in a month or at least up to 50,000 words. It occurs every November and brings together a wide community of writers and even published authors willing to take up the challenge.
Camp NanoWrimo on the other hand is much more adaptable in it’s “requirements”. You don’t have to reach 50,000 words and you can do other things like editing your WIP, etc. You’re also free to set whatever word count goal you want.
I decided to try Camp this year and set myself a goal of 15,000 words. I’ve already started my WIP but I wanted to keep my goal small enough where I can write about at least 500 words a day.
I haven’t written in YEARS so I’m getting into the swing of writing again. It’s been a weird journey because in every aspect of my life, I like to make huge lists and stay organized. I quickly realized that I am not the same neurotic list maker when it comes to writing.
I want to be a plotter but I’m honestly feel like I’m more of a pantser. I like to call myself a “discovery” writer because I do like to take some notes when I’m stuck before jumping into things but I can’t plan out EVERYTHING in the beginning/ahead of time. Trust me, I’ve tried.
I spent the majority of June trying to watch a bunch of writing craft videos on youtube about outlining and other elements of novel writing such as story structure but I had to put a pin on my research and well, just write. I kept stressing out myself out too much about the technicalities.
I reminded myself, and continue to constantly remind myself, that instead of stressing myself out and coming up with a detailed outline, I should just jump into the story and that it’s okay I don’t know everything that’s meant to happen. I need to just experiment and find what works for me and accept that as there’s no right way to write.
My Camp project is basically my current WIP. My WIP is a paranormal/fantasy novel, more so on the paranormal side? I don’t really like going into detail about what I’m writing because 1) things are definitely going to change so there’s no pointing in saying what it’s about now. And also 2) I don’t like other people knowing my story? I’m selfish lol, I like to keep it to myself.
What I will say about the book is that I’d like for my characters to be in their twenties and it’s got two main POV’s with some of the side characters pitching in now and then. In the most vague description ever, my story follows ghosts, the good ones, the bad ones, and the in between ones. Oh, and of course, ghost hunters.
On the more technical side of the my WIP, my Camp project is what I’d like to call a “-0 Draft”. While researching novel writing, I found out that there’s this term called a “0 Draft” which is basically a giant brain dump of everything you want the book to be or have. You can leave things out to fill out later or you can add a bunch of stuff that you know you’ll have to cut out later but want to write so you can better understand your story.
My WIP is currently at the 0 Draft stage but it’s so bad lol that I feel like -0 Draft is a better term. I’m basically building a skeleton at this point, my draft is very empty/dry. I’m currently focused on getting what I know onto paper first.
My current word count is 13,396. So far this month, I’ve written 8,805. I’m a bit behind because I wanted to be at 10,000 words three days ago but I’ve gotten a bit stuck.
I keep getting stuck because I’m trying to balance out my two main POV’s. I have a better feel for one of the POV’s than the other so I’m constantly having to stop and brainstorm. Then when I stop to brainstorm, I stress myself out too much because I’m constantly thinking, okay, but what’s next and then next and then next? And then I’m falling down this outlining blackhole and as I said before, outlining doesn’t work for me. I know some basics but the more I think about details the more I overthink and dig myself into a hole. Then I get too scared to write lol so it’s an endless cycle of self-doubt.
I recently watched a video where the person was saying that as a discovery writer who does like to plan (aka me), they go ahead and plan out the scenes they’re planning to write the day before so they prevent getting too stuck. I think I’m going to do that instead of writing for a couple of days and then suddenly feel like I need to take the next few days off to plan/outline.
I’m going to take it scene by scene.
ah good for you that you’re getting back into writing!! i honestly miss writing, but i never really have the energy or mindset for it anymore 🙁