....this blog post started off completely anticlimactically for me. I had this whole theme set for it about writing to my past self (see my last blog post), but I can't really do that. It's complicated.
So let me start from the beginning. You might want to grab a cup of hot cocoa (or freezing cold lemonade if you have sweltering hot weather like I do) and pull over a chair because, my friend, this story is going to be very, very long. (Okay, fine. You caught me. I'm exaggerating. But still, it's pretty long.)
I started at the beginning of the month writing with my friend. I had written over 5,000 words in the first week and was extremely proud of myself. But then, she had to quit and I decided to start from scratch (we thought of the plot together and I wanted to be fair).
I was so behind. I procrastinated (because I'm the world's biggest procrastinator) with YouTube, Twitter, the YWP NaNoWriMo forums, Doctor Who, Goodreads, my summer reading projects (that was actually a rather productive kind of procrastination), Skype, Minecraft...
What? You want me to stop listing everything I procrastinated with? You get it? Oh, alright. Just for you, blog reader, just for you.
There were just so many things to procrastinate with! And, when I finally got some work done, I'd take a five minute break and end up playing Minecraft for three hours. Are you face-palming? Don't tell me that you're face-palming! No! Don't click on the X! Not the X! Don't click away, please! Don't lose hope yet?
*dramatic sigh* Okay. You get it. I'm really bad at keeping track of my time sometimes. I started to pull apart my inner procrastinator. I killed it slowly by sitting in front of my netbook, sitting in the big, black, leather, reclining, soothing (fine, I'll get to the point) spinny chair in my living room and writing. I had a whole list of tools: WriteOrDie, MyTomatoes, SimplyNoise, the word sprints from @JuNoWriMo, and previous pep talks from the YWP NaNoWriMo archive.
Since I'm not old enough to join the official Camp NaNoWriMo website and have to wait until next year, I joined the JuNoWriMo website. It was created before Camp NaNo started for people who wanted to do NaNoWriMo over the summer. There, I looked at the blogs and the spreadsheet of everyone's progress. It was great.
I was seriously organized. I made myself pacing charts to keep myself on track, a list of tips, tricks, and plot ninjas, and remembered to bring my writing journal everywhere so that I could write in my free time. Everyone was going awesome!
Then, everything went downhill.
Nearly an hour ago, the clock struck midnight and I only had 46,000 words. I was devastated. I was completely disappointed in myself, and then I realized: Wait, what about that first 5,000 that I didn't include? I was seriously confused for a moment. I kept asking myself, Did I win? Did I win? And so I looked on the NaNoWriMo website for the rules.
The rules specifically state you have to start from scratch, and cannot use any previously written prose from before November 1 (or, in this case, June 1) as part of your novel. It needs to be original (you have to have written it on your own) and you must have written at least 50,000 words (or, in YWP NaNoWriMo, your personally set goal) by November 30 (June 30) in order to win.
Started from scratch? Check.
Didn't use a previously written prose? Check.
Original? Check.
Wrote, in total, at least 50,000 words by the end of the month? Check.
The only problem is, I don't feel the same spark that I did when I won last year. Maybe it's because I doubted myself. (Or because I didn't have the thrill of watching my stats on the NaNo website...age requirements, schmage requirements...) Because there wasn't a YWP Camp NaNoWriMo website, I lost the thrill of many things, such as the pep talks and the weekly blogs and the certificates and the online badge. Oh, the online badge. It made me glow with pride. I managed to find one online for me to save, though. I also got the JuNoWriMo badge.
tl;dr: I won Camp NaNoWriMo. Eh, it's complicated.
-Dominique
No comments:
Post a Comment