Tuesday, August 1, 2023

July 2023 Camp NaNoWriMo

 “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

— Isabel Allende 




I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first-time last month. It’s a less intense version of November’s National Novel Writing Month challenge as you can set your own word count. I’ve participated in the November challenge a few times, but I never actually attempted to write a novel in thirty days. I used the challenge as a way to try and finish short stories. Even so, it still felt intense. Setting a low word count took a lot of the stress away. For this project I wrote a western short story. 


I started off strong, then quickly slowed down, figured some things out, and then got back into the groove. I passed the word count goal earlier than expected, and I was able to finish the story by the end of the month. As my other projects weren’t novels, this was my first time officially finishing a NaNoWriMo project. It was great to get a winner badge (see above) and certificate (see below) when you finish. It felt pretty good.


As the story is a first draft, technically it isn’t finished yet. But it has a beginning, middle, and end, and that feels pretty good. Now to get it into shape. 








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