Camp Nano July 2019 – The Rules!

I’d like to start by saying I WILL be taking part in Camp Nano this July, despite the fact I’ve got a hospital appt in the very middle of the month. It may or may not be for actual laser surgery on both my eyes. If this is the case then I’ll be losing at least one day to the procedure & the recovery process.

STATEMENT OF INTENT:- During the month of July 2019 I will be writing at least 40,000 words across numerous short stories of varying lengths. 40k is my minimum goal, the goal may be shifted up (or down) at any point during the month. I’m setting it low due to the recent creative lull I have barely just got back from. It’s a goal of 1290 words per day.

THE RULES:- I can use any ideas I’ve already outlined. I can also use ideas I’ve already started writing but I can’t count any of the words I may have already written. Any revisions or inserts CAN be counted.

BAIL-OUT CLAUSE:- I reserve the right to call an end to Camp at any point, for mental health reasons. I don’t want to have a repeat of April 2019 Camp where I basically lost my mind & couldn’t get going again then resented writing for the next few months.

ACCOUNTABILITY:- I will be completely up front on the days where I write stuff I have already started. I will report those wordcounts truthfully Failing to reach the daily goal is not a failure of Camp. Camp will only be deemed failed if I call an end early or I don’t reach whatever the current set target is. Daily & Total wordcounts will be posted on Twitter & Facebook so my followers can not only track my progress, they can offer their support or keep me honest.

I’ve never lied during a Camp or a NaNo before now, and I’m not about to start now.

GENERAL OUTLINE & HOPES:- I’d like to complete 20 or so short stories so I’ve got new material to submit out. I’d also like to get myself enthused about writing and being creative again.

APRIL CAMP 2019; LESSONS LEARNED:- Not to be in a hurry to get a big lead. Not to write too much in the first week or so, and burn myself out physically & mentally. Camp is a marathon, not a sprint. Every word written is a step in the right direction. Don’t place unnecessary pressure on myself to write a certain amount each day. The goal is achieveable & there’s an entire extra day from a regular Nano to win in.

Wish me luck, I am all in from here.

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Summing Up NaNoWriMo 2018

It’s day 23, and I have won.

I made the call to take part quite late into October, so I had about a week and a half to prepare, fortunately I knew I wasn’t going to be writing a novel, I was taking the rebellion route of short stories.

I’ve won 2 camps with short stories, so I had a fairly high expectation of success.

Planning:- I took a few days to find some outlines, ideas & image prompts. I didn’t find 30 because I didn’t expect to be writing one story every day. My hope was to go well over the daily word count.

Doing the damn thing:-

Day 1 & 2, I wrote a superhero origin story. I’d had the idea for this a few yrs ago so I had a decent outline to work off. 4635 words in the 2 day period.

Day 3, An idea about a spaceship. Another one I’d had a while back, it wrote fairly easily. 2463 words.

Day 4, An idea I had after getting a cold call to the house by phone. 2072 words.

Day 5 & 6, A fairystory retold and reimagined. 3910 words.

Day 7, Another superhero story, but told from a totally different point of view. 2658 words.

Day 8, They say write what you know, so I used some of my military experience. 2625 words.

Day 9 & 10, I’ll admit, I struggled to write anything. 713 words.

Day 10, I managed to find my stride later in day 10. 2346 words.

Day 11, Quite an easy day off a good image prompt. 2094 words.

Day 12, A weird story off something I kept mistyping. Well, it made me laugh. 1340 words.

Day 13, Another fairly easy day off an image prompt. 2430 words.

Day 14, My first day where I wrote nothing. 0 words.

Day 15, Another of my odd survival stories. 3272 words.

Day 16, It started out as a western, & went a totally different way. 1996 words.

Day 17, Me rewriting Day Of The Triffids, I guess? 1743 words.

Day 18, An experiment in story tellling, but in a new way. 2255 words.

Day 19, The first story was just odd. 1702 words. As was the second. 4002 words.

Day 20, Not the first time I’ve gone with a weird idea. 2165 words.

Day 21, Rather than write nothing, I wrote something short. 620 words.

Day 22, A prison story. 1690 words. And something about a maze. 3003 words.

Day 23, And a short story about space to finish. 1090 words.

Total word count 50824.

Summing up Camp NaNo July 2018

This month I decided to set my official goal at 50,000 words, reaching it by writing various different short stories. Here’s how I got on!

Day 01 – Daily word count 4724, total word count 4724.
Day 02 – Daily word count 2120, total word count 6844.
Day 03 – Daily word count 2668, total word count 9512.
Day 04 – Daily word count 3850, total word count 13362.
Day 05 – Daily word count 5301, total word count 18663.
Day 06 – Daily word count 3253, total word count 21916.
Day 07 – Daily word count 4247, total word count 26163. Broke halfway point!
Day 08 – Daily word count 2020, total word count 28183.
Day 09 – Daily word count 1947, total word count 30130.
Day 10 – Daily word count 2670, total word count 32800.
Day 11 – Daily word count 4542, total word count 37342. Added 84 words to day 6 story.Total=37426 words.
Day 12 – Daily word count 2688, total word count 40114.
Day 13 – Daily word count 4468, total word count 44582. Added 79 words to yesterdays count.
Day 14 – Daily word count 1286, total word count 45868.
Day 15 – Daily word count 2058, total word count 47926.
Day 16 – Daily word count 3330, total word count 51256. Win on day 16!
Day 17 – Daily word count 1818, total word count 53074. Unofficial new target now 60,000 words.
Day 18 – Daily word count 1022, total word count 54096. 1 like from #Pit2Pub
Day 19 – Daily word count 1208, total word count 55384.
Day 20 – Daily word count 1600, total word count 56984. Win claimed!
Day 21 – Daily word count 1363, total word count 58347.
Day 22 – Daily word count 1498, total word count 59845.
Day 23 – Daily word count 712, total word count 60557. Unofficial goal reached!
Day 24 – Daily word count 1378, total word count 61935.

Claimed end of camp on day 25, no writing took place that day.

I wrote and completed 27 new stories. I’d stand by all bar 3 of them to be saleable.

I managed to write something every day, despite this being the hottest July on record. One of my novels is currently being read by a publisher.

I did okay this month.

Camp NaNoWriMo July 2018 Rules

To have a little order, I need to establish rules and guidelines, these are they.

OBJECT:- To write at least 50,000 words (or more) in 31 days.

This does NOT mean that I have to write 1 story every day.

Not writing a story each day WILL NOT deem the challenge to have been failed.

Failure is to not write at least 50,000 words in the entire 31 day period.

There is no daily goal, just a goal for the whole month.
But more than 1667 words each day would be a good idea.

Between the period of midnight July 1st 2018 and July 31th 2018 23;59:59 I MUST write at least 50,000 words.

If by August 1st 2018 I have not done this, I have failed.

I am allowed to write stories longer than 1000 words, there is no upper word limit.
I am allowed to write several stories in one day. There is no daily word count to reach.

Stories can come from image prompts or word prompts.
I can use prewritten outlines, as long as they aren’t actually started stories.
I cannot use stories I have already started & merely type them up or finish them unless they were created in the above time period.

Stories do not need to be spellchecked or proofed.

These are the rules, to ensure fair play and no cheating.

Let’s Talk About Novels

As my 2nd novel is currently being read by an agent (thankyou #Pitmad!), I thought I’d take a bit of time to talk about my other novel and the ones I’ve either never finished or never started.

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Successful novel #1 was The Impossible Lean. Written during Camp NaNoWriMo of April 2016 (despite not knowing it actually existed!), this was the first novel I actually finished, and also did it in under 30 days.

Impossible Lean is a YA survivalism spec-fic piece set on a distant human colony where the occupants struggle to survive. It’s still in edits, and if I’m honest, it’s probably always will be.

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Obviously, Impossible Lean wasn’t my first attempt to write a novel. The first attempt started WAY back in 1986 before a lot of people reading this were even born. And I’m actually still writing it. Sort of.

The first novel was actually a Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy fan-fic piece called “Don’t Panic!” The story was my idea, it was written before the 5th Adams book came out. It was an attempt to combine TV, radio & books into one definitive world. I created a few new characters and used existing ones in new ways than they’d been seen before.

It still exists, it lives on my old blog.

http://allaboutanythingatall.blogspot.com/2008/06/dont-panic-my-hhgttg-fan-fic.html

It’s there, if you feel like reading it. I had an idea for an end too. I just never finished the whole thing.

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My second attempt at a novel started while I was in the RAF. I owned an electric typewriter and I started getting back into writing seriously. I wrote at least 1 poem most days, normally more.

The second attempt was a fantasy/SF cross-over (this genre didn’t even exist in 1992, when I started writing it) called The Saga Of The Invisible Knight. It’s set about 1000 yrs after a nuclear war where the remnants of society have reverted to a medieval style existance. I typed some of it, I handwrote some of it. There’s an absolute shit ton of notes for it. I was lucky, in that I found it when we were moving house having thought I’d lost it many years ago. I could literally pick it up tomorrow and start writing it as an actual novel.

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My next idea for a novel came off a short story I wrote about 4 years ago, The Space Museum. It’s a story about being the last American woman left alive after a global war/pandemic. I hadn’t decided which. There is a brief outline that exists, I’m not sure if I’ll ever write it.

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My last attempt to write a novel failed 3 days into the task, that was another try during NaNoWriMo of 2016. It was a story of someone who ran aground on what he thought was an island that turns out not to be. I wrote about 6000 words but it died on its arse because I couldn’t sustain the plot with only one chararacter. I’ve still got what I wrote, and I might finish it as a short novella or novelette one day.

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There’s one last collection of notes and ideas that exist almost as an outline, which I’m considering writing for this years NaNoWriMo. It’s more a dramatic piece, with a little dystopian twist. I don’t want to give away too many details as it’s a good idea that would be easy for anyone to write themselves.

So there you go. The novels I started, or didn’t start, or gave up on.

Camp NaNoWriMo April 2018 Rules

To have a little order, I need to establish rules and guidelines, these are they.

OBJECT:- To write at least 30,000 words (or more) in 30 days.

This does NOT mean that I have to write 1 story every day.

Not writing a story each day WILL NOT deem the challenge to have been failed.

Failure is to not write 30,000 words in total (or more) in the 30 day period.

There is no daily goal, just a goal for the whole month.

Between the period of midnight April 1st 2018 and April 30th 2018 23;59:59 I MUST write at least 30,000 words.

If by May 1st I have not done this, I have failed.

I am allowed to write stories longer than 1000 words, there is no upper word limit.
I am allowed to write several stories in one day whose combined word counts are equal to or greater than 1000 words.

Stories can come from image prompts or word prompts.
I cannot use stories I have already started & merely type them up or finish them.
I can use prewritten outlines, as long as they aren’t actually started stories.

Stories do not need to be spellchecked or proofed but MUST be word counted using a wordprocessor and an online word counter which must both state the story is 1000 words or longer (not including the title, the date, my name or THE END).

These are the rules, to ensure fair play and no cheating.

Far From The Blogging Crowd

Hello blog readers, and sorry. I’ve been neglecting you again.

It’s for a good reason, I’ve been hard at work finishing my beta comment edits on the 2nd novel.
Those are now done and I am over half way into audio edits.

Over 26,0000 words proofed. But I am far from done.

I’ve decided to put a storyline back that I had in mind but didn’t use as I was writing. It’s not difficult to reincorporate, it’s deciding where to locate it that’s the toughest job. For that I have to do word counts for all of the chapters then see which is shortest.

I’m happy because it means I’ve actually got one of my two novels close to full completion.
I’m hoping to get it done before the year is done.

Summing up Camp NaNoWriMo July 2017

Let’s start on a high, shall we? It’s day 24. And I have a VALIDATED WIN!

Here’s the breakdown for stats purposes.

Official goal was 40,000. This remained unchanged for the entire time.

Day 01:- 5178 words written, 5178 total.
Day 02:- 1926 words written, 7104 total.
Day 03:- 1829 words written, 8933 total. Bit cheaty here today, mapped out future plot.
Day 04:- 1951 words written, 10884 total.
Day 05:- 2150 words written, 13054 total.
Day 06:- 2122 words written, 15156 total.
Day 07:- 2663 words written, 17819 total.
Day 08:- 2714 words written, 20533 total. Just over half way to goal.
Day 09:- 2125 words written, 22658 total.
Day 10:- 1837 words written, 24495 total. Low count, Eye Clinc appt today.
Day 11:- 2078 words written, 26573 total. Struggled today.
Day 12:- 2302 words written, 28875 total.
Day 13:- 2307 words written, 31182 total. Over 30k, less than half the month gone.
Day 14:- 2123 words written, 33305 total.
Day 15:- 1569 words written, 34874 total. Hardest day yet.
Day 16:- 0 Words written, 34874 total. Took the day off to avoid burn out.
Day 17:- 1347 words written, 36221 total.
Day 18:- 700 words written, 36921 total. Worst day so far for actual output.
Day 19:- 1291 words written, 38077 total.
Day 20:- 2979 words written, 41056 total. Official win on day 20!
Day 21:- 2194 words written, 43250 total.
Day 22:- 2907 words written, 46157 total.
Day 23:- 1344 words written, 47501 total.
Day 24:- 2516 words written, 50017 total. Fully validated WIN.

Camp NaNoWriMo July 2017 details

I’ve been working on my ideas for this, fleshing the story out a bit.

My feelings are that the story is moving towards novel territory. So 50,000 words or a touch more.

The initial feeling was I was doing five chapters of 10,000 words each but breaking those down into 4 sub-chapters, each of which was 2,500 words long. Basically this was to break a long chapter down into something managable.

I don’t think this is going to work, as the piece currently stands.

I’ve got something to write about for each of the five different chapters the book takes place over (each chapter basically being a year long). I’m not sure if each of those things can run to 10,000 words but there are other things that I can use as filler material.

Currently the goal has been set at 40,000 words which I think is totally do-able without any need to stretch what I’ve got. If I think I’ve got enough once the option to change the goal is available, we’ll see how the actual writing is going.

Six Too Few started out as a short dream which I woke up from. I didn’t immediately write it down. In fact I avoided writing it down over 4 days until I finally reached the point where I had to get the damn thing out of my head.

And now it’s set to potentially be a novel. Mind you, I said that about “On Reaching The Beach“. And that died on its arse within less than a week.

I’m honestly excited about writing this story. Everyone I’ve spoken to about it, I felt enthusiastic telling them the outline. I’m deliberately not counting what I already wrote, so when the Camp starts it’ll be interesting to discover how much I wrote for the opening.

In my own eyes, I’m going to try and stick to the NaNoWriMo ethos and reach my goal before the end of day 30. I’ll try to find out what the exact rules are before the start of day 1.

I’m not sure if I’m going to blog during the Camp period. We’ll see.

Wish me luck!

Camp NaNoWriMo July 2017 heads-up

Almost all the notes for “the Assassin story” are typed up.

To help people track it, the current working (non-spoilery) title is “Six Too Few“.

THIS IS NOT THE ACTUAL TITLE!

Please DONT ask plot related questions. Merely setting the maths question to people gave away a ton of info I’d rather have kept in my head.

I’m going to be writing this as Camp NaNoWriMo for July. As yet there is no fixed length for the story despite me already setting a goal on the Camp page, this is subject to change and may get shorter or longer.

I know how long the book takes place over, and that entire time WILL taken place within the context of the piece. If I can write enough, it might (with emphasis on the word MIGHT) become a novel. I still haven’t made a hard decision here yet!

I’ve probably already got the same amount of notes I had for Impossible Lean which did run out of steam towards the end. With the world I have and the things that happen in the main city, I honestly believe there is enough material to write 50k and not feel like I padded it out.

July is a 31 day month so I am not sure how the regular NaNoWriMo rules apply with the extra day.

I still need to decide if the seasons of the world do follow ours, with longer nights and temperature changes too.