…Would someone please remind me that doing July Camp NaNo is a BAD idea? Because I get excited about ‘interacting’ with other writers and forget these things, this is the second year in a row.
Did I manage to finish/win this year? Yes, hence the gigantic banner image overhead. I did end up switching projects mid-stream, though, because my original plan didn’t work out the way I thought it would. Instead of a lot of little random stories, I ended up spawning another strange original story universe. It has been moved to the back burner until I can decide what I want to do with it, and instead I added several thousand more words to “Heart of a Hero.” Sadly, none of those words were added to Chapter 2, which was the one I needed to finish most. 😉
Was it at least fun in the Cabin this month? Well, not for me – the rest of my cabin mates seemed to enjoy themselves. Nice people, but I really didn’t feel like I was able to connect with them very well. Most of them turned out to be plotters/outliners rather than Just Write It! pantsers like me, we didn’t really have much writing ground in common and I felt very awkward about it. Not to mention I also ended up battling a hugely depressing bout of imposter syndrome (“You aren’t a real writer and they all know it!”) this month, in spite of the fact that I officially published another short story, the July promotion at Smashwords saw a lot more people reading my stuff, my blog traffic went way up, and the Collaborative Writing Challenge book I took part in is about to be published. Impostor syndrome is a bitch.
Will I keep doing April Camp? Yes, April is usually fine, but for some reason July just hasn’t been working out for me. You guys are going to remind me, right? No. More. July. Camp!
Will I keep doing regular November NaNo? Oh hell yes – November NaNo is fun. Some year I’d even like to attend the Night of Writing Dangerously in San Francisco, which just happens to be where my wife and I went for our first anniversary.