Camp NaNoWriMo Week Four (8/18 - 8/25)

30,351

What it should be: 38,709 (as of midnight, 8/25)

Favorite lines:

I’m halfway through a waffle cone of cherry ice cream when my phone rings. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest, it had to have been my parents, or Penelope’s parents, wondering why the heck we weren’t in school. I check the phone’s screen cautiously, exhaling when I see Fran’s number. I answer.
“Hey, Fran. I can’t talk a lot, I’m in school.”
“Oh, quit it with the bullshit, deary, I saw you and your little friend at that pep rally in the center of town earlier,” Fran says from the other end. I blush, thankful that she can’t see me now.

Biggest stressor: I'm worried more about finishing my packing for school, getting all (or at least most) of my required reading done, and finishing all of my pleasure reading before I have to return all of those books at the library. That, along with going and buying the things that I'll need, making lists for more things I'll need, and communicating with my roommate has kept me really busy. My drive to write has been pretty low.

How I feel about this week: Kind of crummy, but I'm still pressing on. I haven't given up yet, and are kicking it into overdrive to finish this thing before I leave next Thursday.

Want to join me for Camp NaNoWriMo? Sign up here!

Camp NaNoWriMo Week Three (8/11 - 8/17)

19, 093

What it should be: 27, 419 (as of midnight, 8/11)

Favorite lines:

“You have reached Francine Weathers at the Red Efts Nature Education Center. For visitors information and hours, please press one. To leave an administrative related message, please press two. If you would like an interview regarding that insufferable book with our lovely park as a setting, please lift yourself by the seat of your pants and kick your own ass out of my town. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Biggest stressor: Remembering to write! I've had such a busy week; my family got back from camping Monday, I had a friend over to watch a movie Tuesday, Wednesday night I saw Spider-Man, Thursday night I practiced driving and spent the day reading, and today I took (and passed!) my driver's test and saw Paranorman with some friends. Writing comes easiest for me at night, but I know that not writing during the day is no excuse, but I'm usually doing other things then (read: procrastinating.)

How I feel about this week: Neutral. I'm not any further or behind than I planned to be. Writing is still coming very easily for me, I just keep putting it off! I hope to spend more time writing tomorrow, the house should be pretty quiet.

Want to join me for Camp NaNoWriMo? Sign up here!

Week 1: Camp NaNoWriMo August Session (8/1-8/3)

5116

What it should be: 4838 (as of midnight, 8/4)

Favorite lines: (between Henriette, the main character, and her friend Penelope)

     “Blood Lust,” I say, reading the cover aloud. “What’s it about, incest?”
     “No, stupid,” Penelope says, grabbing it back to flip through the pages. “It’s about this mortal girl that meets this hot vampire guy and fall in love despite, you know, the fact that he’s a lot older than her. That’s the part that’s kind of creepy, but I tried not to think about it too much while reading it. It’s really good, if you read anything in that bag it should be that one,” she says, closing up the car and locking it. I stare down at Blood Lust and give Penelope a shrug. “I think incest would’ve been more interesting.”

Biggest stressor: Starting, and trying to decide where my story is trying to go as I'm writing. I don't exactly have time to plan now as I'm trying to reach 50,000 in one month along with reading for Dystopian August, planning for college, spending the last precious moments of summer with friends before we all leave, etc.

How I feel about this week: Pretty good! I'm right on track, I've got some good stuff written, and I'm feeling great about this story, especially since I was so apprehensive before vabout writing a paranormal romance (something I rarely read.)

Want to join me for Camp NaNoWriMo? Sign up here!

Camp NaNoWriMo Approacheth!

The first place that I heard about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month for those out of the loop*, was on another blog. So, I figured that there was no better place to spread the love than here!

National Novel Writing Month is a month-long (really?) event spanning November where participants write, or at least strive to, 50,000 words of an original story. No previously written content allowed, just you and your imagination for thirty days straight. At approximately 1,666 words a day, nobody said that this was easy.

For one reason or another, some people can't do it in November, and that's totally cool. So cool in fact, The Office of Letters and Light, the brains behind NaNoWriMo, put their smarty-pants heads together and came up with Camp NaNoWriMo with one session in June, another in August. You can do one, the other, both, or save your ideas for November instead. It's all the fun of NaNoWriMo with more bug bites!

I really cannot stress enough how much fun this is. Even if writing isn't your thing, that's no excuse, because I hadn't written a script before I wrote a 100 pages of one with Script Frenzy in April. Even if you don't finish you'll at least walk away with something, even if it's just a few thousand (or hundred) words that, hey!, you may even want to pick up later.

The only question left is, why not? But if that's not the only question left feel free to leave it in the comments or check out the FAQ. Hope to see you there!

*We're the best kind of exclusive club, the kind anyone can join

Ahoy! NaNoWriMo Approaches!

(Picture from The Booksmith)

What does Water for Elephants, The Night Circus (pictured above), and dozens of other books all have in common? They had their humble origins as rough copies from NaNoWriMo.

This Saturday, October first, marks the date where the NaNoWriMo website reboots itself, letting members new and old alike come in and set up their pages before the fun, challenging, totally off-the-wall awesome event that is National Novel Writing Month.

If you have never heard of it, National Novel Writing Month is an event spanning all 31 days of November where a participant writes a 50,000 word novel (or rather, novella, but it is generally agreed in NaNoWriMo that "novel" is a cooler word.) That breaks down to around 1667 words a day to make the deadline, unless you are like me and blow through 10,000 in the final weekend.

I'm writing about it for two reasons:
1) I first learned of it a few years (four, to be precise) ago on a blog, and am now using my blogging abilities to spread the word further
2) The book bloggosphere has been up in arms with love for The Night Circus recently, and today it was revealed to me that not only has it hit the New York Times bestseller list, but it started when Erin Morgenstern decided to sit down and takes the challenge that thousands of other people just like you take every November

Needless to say, it isn't easy. But then again, most of the worthwhile things in life ever are. And you only need one thing to start: that tiny spark in the back of your mind that says "Yes, I can do this."