Camp NaNoWriMo has launched this month! And other writerly things …
It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, too, so I’ve promised myself to get better at posting these again as well.
This kind of stuff helps me stay on-task!
As some of you might know, April is Camp NaNoWriMo … which is a National-Novel-Writing-Month type event held when it’s not actually National Novel Writing Month (because we’re writers and we really like to torture ourselves!). In any event, Camp is a bit more relaxed than the event in November, because during the twice-a-year “Camps”, you get to set your own writing goals. You don’t have to write 50,000 words if you don’t want to. Instead, you can edit. Or just write less. You can pretty much do whatever you damn well please, as long as it gets you progress on your writing.
And it’s another excuse to be a part of hundreds of thousands of people doing the same thing at the same time, and most of us writers function a lot better when we have outside accountability. So I am participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month, and you can watch my progress here if you so desire!
Here are my writing and editing goals for April 2016:
Finish, polish, and send to beta readers my 300 word flashfic submission for Mischief Corner Books’ 3rd Annual Queer Sci Fi anthology “Flight”Complete final edits on anthology flashfic submission story based on beta reader feedbackSubmit flashfic entry to Mischief Corner Books(done! 4.12.16)Complete edits to final 48,000 words of client #2’s novel(done! 4.18.16)- Complete edits to Blackmarket Body Episode 1: The Transference
- Continue edits on scifi novel PRIMUS
Reserve spot with Kevin G. Summers for ebook formatting- Send mailing list exclusive freebie (EXCITING!!!)
- Continue watching course videos from Nick Stephenson and Tim Grahl
- Continue reading “Your Connection Advantage” by Joyce Layman and “How to Make a Million F*cking Dollars” by Eric Sims
Send announcements and goodies to the fantastic people on all my lists!Post something super special on Patreon for my patrons!(done! They got the NEARLY final draft of PRIMUS Chapter 4! 4.27.16)- Follow up with the awesome people I met at Wizard World last weekend
And I’m going to have to stop there! Yowza! Wish me luck my friends, I’m going to need it! OH, and if you’d like to hear about my experience meeting none other than David Tennant LIVE AND IN PERSON last weekend (yes, I almost died from the fangirling) you can read all about it in my recent write-up for Doctor Who Watch! Enjoy!
That’s a very ambitious list! Good luck and I will be following your progress!
Thank you for the well wishes! I will need them!
How do you write so much so fast? I’m looking to change my routine so I can add more shorter works to the mix.
Hey Caitlin!
Well, the secret is … I do not write fast at all! 😛
I am one of the slowest writers in my writing group, if not THE slowest. All of these shorts I’m working on publishing now have been complete for nearly two years, I’m only now getting around to doing something with them. In the meantime, I try to take opportunities when I get them to jot down new shorts, so I can always have a back up supply of them to release every now and then while I continue to edit the giant novel.
I like to write shorts because my novels tend to get very long (around the 150k mark). So completing a short story keeps me from feeling like I’m making no progress at all. My favorite way to write short stories is to time myself, and only give myself an hour (for example) to write them. Or a day. Or a week. At max, a month. Then I know they won’t be hanging around over my shoulder like the novels do. I can just get them done and over with, and they don’t get in the way of progress on the novels, either.
I also like to use prompts for my short stories. 🙂 All except one of my shorts came from ideas created by random prompts. I think the key though is to not give yourself much time to complete them. You can always edit and rework them later. But much like the novels, writing them faster is better. (At least for me! … most of my novel writing is also done in a compressed time frame – NaNoWriMo!)
That makes a lot of sense. 🙂 I think I’ll try doing that: work on some flash fiction between books. You’re right, writing smaller pieces does help with feeling like I’m making progress, too! Thank you for the insight!
Yes, it’s fun to see what you can come up with on a super short deadline. 🙂 Usually those little stories spur on a huge plot line, too, that you can break up into several smaller stories, a serialized novel, or a novella!