NaNoWriMo and the Honeymoon Collide

I’ve written about both my plans to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and my Honeymoon Prep. These two events will be colliding later this week. As promised, here’s my most recent business card idea for the convention:

I’ve already promised myself that I won’t stress about writing while we’re in Austin, but I guarantee you I’ll be thinking about my word count during the slow points in the day. What better way to spend long periods of time in line? Playing Pokemon?

Actually, that sounds like a good idea too. Someone remind me to pack my DS. After all, I am…

BOOM. Used a graphic twice. I feel so accomplished.

Good luck to everyone prepping their novels! And to those who will be at RTX, I can’t wait to see you there!

Camp NaNoWriMo – Or, A Fantastic Way to Lose Sleep for a Month

I’ve impulsively decided to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this year, which is madness, so I’ll wish myself luck.

In case you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, and is held in November each year. The goal is to write a 50k word novel in one month. The “camp” sessions have the same goal*, but take place during summer. I’m planning to join the session that begins July 1.

Now for the madness. I’ve successfully completed NaNoWriMo twice, and while I was quite happy with both novels, I never finished the editing process on either. Two years later, the second is now very close to being finished. It would probably be smarter to dedicate my brain to completing that, but who wants to be logical?

It’s also mad to try and jump in so soon. I don’t have much of a plan, which scares me a little. What if I run out of story too soon? What if I realize halfway through that it doesn’t make sense? Of course, not having a plan could also be a lot of fun. I can make my characters do whatever I want. Outline? What? Outlines are for sissies. It means I’ll spend more time thinking what to write each day than I would if I had an outline in front of me, but  I think it’ll be worth it. The last time I did NaNoWriMo I was in a similar boat, and I was happy with both the result and the experience.

The final reason this whole thing is madness is I’m going on my honeymoon in July. My husband fully supports me doing this, and while we’ll only be out of town for a few days, I still feel guilty that I’ll likely be taking up some of those days writing. He has assured me that I shouldn’t feel guilty, so I’ll do my darndest.

Is anyone else participating? Anyone else nervous? I know that getting through the first two weeks will be the toughest with my schedule, which is a little scary because the first week tends to be the easiest. Knowing that, I’ve decided not to get on myself too hard if I don’t complete the 50,000 word goal. I obviously want to complete it, but I don’t want to spend any part of our honeymoon stressed out.

(Basically, I’m trying to trick myself. If I don’t feel pressure, maybe I’ll speed right toward that goal. Don’t tell me about it. It’s a secret.)

Wish me luck!

 *The camp sessions actually allow you to change the word count goal, but it defaults to 50k. I’ve lowered my goal on the website to 40k to try and allow myself breathing room for that honeymoon, but the goal in my head will always be 50.

Joys of Lazy Saturdays

Today, friends, is a special, fantastic day. Today I have no commitments. No schedule. Being the huge introvert that I am, a recharging day is long overdue.

Here’s my plan:

The Dresden Files, and relaxing with my kittens. Be jealous, world.

My other goal is to get the first chapter of the novella ready to share. I don’t care if my followers read it or not. That’s not why most people are here, and I understand. When it gets down to it, we write for ourselves more than we do for other people. This is about developing my own creativity. Wish me luck.

Creative side

One of my original goals in making this blog was to engage in my creative side. Below is a picture of one of my ventures. I’ve been making necklaces using words from Harry Potter books. Most of them I’ve given away, so far only keeping “Horcrux” for myself. Today I added this to my personal collection.