Nadaness In Motion's July Camp NaNoWriMo Writing Report

In July, I joined Camp NaNoWriMo in order to get some ‘real’ writing done.

The Camp NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge that is meant to help writers work on their manuscripts and drafts without the pressure of the 1,667 words per day requirement meant for November, when the original NaNoWriMo is in progress.

NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, is when writers “try” to leave the world behind to focus on their books for a whole month. November’s NaNoWriMo attempts to get writers/authors to write 50,000 words in a month. Not an easy feat.

The July Camp NaNoWriMo did not have a specific word count target but allowed authors to set their own targets and to increase or reduce that number based on their progress.

I had originally planned 16,000 words for Darya’s story, an average of 500 words per day plus 500 bonus for the end of the month.

Trying out the Camp thing allowed me to learn a few things about myself and writing habits, or rather what I can do and what I can’t.

For Darya’s story, I was able to write around 4,000 words. I was disappointed. BUT I realised 4,000 was better than nothing. I had also realised that I couldn’t write during week days, which trimmed the number of days I can actually write on. Add in some errands, travelling times and other bits, 4,000 words is progress that is neither good nor bad. It’s a start.

Also in July:

·        Wrote SEVEN poems! I haven’t done that in a while!

·        Wrote 4 book reviews. (Not a major achievement but I wanted to add it in)

·        Wrote 2,050 words in a new short story (Untitled, hoping to finish it in August)

·        Wrote around 720 words in a sci-fi story (Also untitled & planning to finish it in the first week of August)

·        Wrote 244 words as general prose (Divided on two pieces)

·        Wrote 673 words for a flash fiction piece (can’t remember the title but will check my notes)

Overall: I wrote around 7,720 words in July.

But the bottom line is: I wrote!

So what are my plans for August?

New word count target but this time I’ll take into consideration the fact that weekdays are hard to include. How many? I’m thinking 10,000 words, then I’ll decide if I need to raise this target.

I’ll keep the flash fiction and poetry word counts outside this limit though and see how things turnout.

I never know if I’ll write poetry or not, so I’ll leave this to chance and whenever inspiration hits.

Note: I also want to thank author Devorah Fox for encouraging me to take part in the July camp.

If you’ve participated in Camp NaNoWriMo for July, please share your word count and progress. If you have suggestions and/or help tips, please feel free to share.