Well, I haven’t exactly done a fantastic job of updating this blog regularly. Part of this is because all of my projects have been fairly slow going recently, because honestly, these last couple of months have been fairly difficult. I have a lot going on in my life right now, both positive and negative, and it’s been hard to not so much find the time to write, but to focus on it. Things have been going slightly better recently, though, and I want to stay on top of both my projects and this blog during the summer.
So, in an attempt to catch up, here’s the condensed version of what went on during April and May:
Camp NaNoWriMo
I signed up for Camp with the standard 50k word goal, but it seems I bit off more than I could chew. When I went into Camp, I really wanted to push through and finish one particular novel that I’d started, just to get it out of the way, because, in truth, it’s a project that I don’t enjoy all that much, and I was writing it more for practical reasons (it’s a story with a plot and theme a publisher specifically requested). Turns out, that wasn’t exactly setting myself up for success. Not even the deadlines and motivation of Camp could keep me from procrastinating. After several missed days, I eventually jumped ship completely, and started ‘pantsing’ an entirely new novel. This actually went fairly well, and it was interesting, because this was the first time I’d ‘pantsed’ a story, with no planning whatsoever, for a long time. It felt really different. Nonetheless, while it was fun at first, not having a proper outline did eventually slow me down, and I only managed to reach a combined total of 25k words for the two projects during the month.
So, I lost Camp. For the first time. At least I did learn a few things, I think, about what works and what doesn’t. If this had been during a time when I had been more able to focus on writing, maybe it would have gone better, but I guess not everything always goes according to plan. I do still intend to work on both Camp novels, though. In particular, I’m going to do some proper outlining on the new one, and then get back to work on as soon as possible, as I’m really rather fond of it. The first one I attempted…I’ll continue it, but at a slower, side-project pace.
NaPoWriMo
NaPo went well during the first week, but afterwards, my lack of focus affected it, too, and I ended up dropping out of the challenge, save for the last three days, where I wrote three additional poems to bring my total to ten poems out of thirty. It was fun, but the timing was just really poor. I wish that NaPo wasn’t always the same month as April Camp. Nonetheless, I will more than likely give it another go next year.
Local “Exquisite Corpse” Event
By sheer chance, I happened to be at a local bookstore, and noticed a flyer for an “exquisite corpse” (composite story) writing event that it was holding for Independent Bookstore Day. On a whim, I signed up, and wrote chapter 7 of the composite story at a public desk, with the words displayed on a big projector screen in the middle of the store while I was writing. That was…interesting. I wasn’t particularly satisfied with what I wrote, but for the half an hour time limit, I suppose it wasn’t bad. I still haven’t picked up my copy of the finished book from the bookstore, yet. I’m eager to read the whole thing (I was only allowed to read chapter 6 prior to writing) and see how it sounds, and to see how the next writer continued off of my submission. This was actually really fun, though. I would definitely do something like this again.
The Avon Fanlit Writing Contest
The Avon Fanlit contest is going on at JukePop Serials right now, where anyone who wants to can contribute chapter submissions to an ongoing romance story, based on prompts. I don’t generally write straight-up romance, and doing so is pretty out of character for me, but the contest looked like too much fun to sit out on. I only found out about it 48 hours before the chapter 1 deadline, but I did get my submission finished on time. Chapter 2 is currently open for submissions, but I think I’m going to pass on this one. I will probably pick the contest back up on chapter 3, though, and will probably write at least a couple more of the five total prompts throughout the rest of the spring and summer. It’s actually a pretty neat way to let loose and experiment with writing, and to get some feedback. I’d recommend the contest to anyone with at least a mild interest in – or who’s at least tolerant of – the romance genre.
Other than that, I’ve been taking a bit of a break from my revisions on Paragon, the fantasy novel that I consider my main project. I’ll get back to it soon, but I needed a little change of pace. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot of editing on my 2013 NaNoWriMo novel, and I’m hoping to get both the revisions and the rest of the drafting done on that one before NaNo 2015 rolls around. I’ve been trying to catch up on my serials, as well, and as mentioned in the last post, I’ve also been working heavily on Glass, my game project. Here’s hoping the summer will be productive!
Has anyone else had any big events or struggles during the spring?
Beware the Rook 