Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it? Whooop!
Yes, I managed to get the most super special secret project ever (should I start just calling this TMSSSPE? Or maybe come up with a codename?) to 30,000 on Monday last week, which completed the challenge I set myself for Camp NaNo this year.
Honestly, it was a massive relief, and I nearly cried with the sheer release of anxiety over getting there. Trying to work on the WIP from 9:30 to 13:30 every day AND rewrite my thesis proposal AND edit my dissertation essay AND read and offer detailed feedback on the work of twenty-four students every week AND find time to, you know, adult (walk my dog adequately, exercise every day, eat something approaching healthy food and prevent my house from turning into a black hole inhabited only by person-sized sentient dust bunnies, warring clans of silverfish and a slowly decaying TBR pile the size of a Welsh mountain) was starting to make me go a bit frazzled. And sure, I could have given up, but having managed an unbroken streak of 20 days of writing made my competitive streak burn to life and I just couldn't make myself do it.
If you're thinking that it may have been a bit overly ambitious to decide to do Camp NaNo during what is apparently already an incredibly busy period - yes, you are right. But on the other hand, it accomplished what NaNo is intended to accomplish, which was getting me to that target. And I knew without some kind of motivation, even if only my own competitive streak, TMSSSPE (codename: Times Pee? That definitely doesn't work, does it?) would almost certainly have stalled completely in July, which I didn't want.
So I'm not mad. I might even try Camp NaNo again next year, provided I have slightly more breathing room in July 2021.
(Please do not cause me to be cursed in some inventive fashion, discover I am really a troll princess in the middle of a troll civil war, or send a flying house to crush me during July next year, universe - it would not be funny, just mean. Thank you very much)
I'll be popping the WIP on the back-burner for a couple of weeks to give myself space for everything else. I don't really want to: I'm still loving it. But it's the only thing that doesn't have any deadlines or contractual obligations attached to it just now. And I'm still researching and scribbling down notes as they occur to me.
Are you still pressing your noses to the NaNo grindstone - or other grindstone - muffins? And do you have any suggestions for a codename for TMSSSPE? Let me know in the comments!
1 comment:
I'm seeing this post very late but congratulations Zoe! I always look forward to your books and have been in love with your stories since Shadows on the moon. If it isn't too much trouble, then can you please do a blog post on your writing process? How you research, edit and take final decisions etc? And whether you pen the draft first or type it directly? Too many questions, I know. But your creativity has always fascinated me.
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