Why Continuing an Old Story in NaNoWriMo is a Bad Idea

Long blog title. Also, new blog design! Been meaning to update this thing since I started posting back in March. Hope you guys like it!

Anyway, back to business.

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month; a worldwide challenge for writers to sit down and complete a 50,000 word novel--from scratch--in one month's time. It takes place yearly in November, and the same people who host it host Camp NaNoWriMo twice in the summertime. As I type this, people all over the world are typing furiously, as Camp NaNoWriMo is well into its second half, and writers young and old alike are pulling their hair out and wondering why the hell they thought this was a good idea.

I love the smell of fresh prose in the morning. Or I would if it, y'know, had a smell.

I began this month with the best of intentions. Almost a year ago, I dove into a story I referred to as The Decagon Project. The reason I called it this is because of a dare I received from a certain someone (you know who you are); I'm supposed to write a story containing a love decagon--or a love triangle with 10 people in it, for those of you not up-to-date on your literary terms. (If that can be considered a literary term, that is.)

Anyway, after working on it for a year I hadn't made quite as much progress as I would have liked. That's why, when July rolled around, I decide to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and use this outer motivation of writing madness to finish the story by the time the month ended.

19 days later and I've only written an additional 1,433 words.

Maybe this is just me, but the problem I encountered with continuing an old story--as opposed to starting with a fresh, sparkling new one--is that it's a lot harder to get into the spirit of NaNoWriMo, so to speak. The whole idea behind NaNoWriMo is to worry less about quality, and more about quantity; to push back your "inner editor" and just write, without over-thinking every word that appears on the page in front of you. Over the past couple of weeks, I've found that doing this is a lot harder--sometimes even impossible--when you're so used to taking your time with it, instead of rushing around and writing 14,000 words in a day. (Which I did on the last day of NaNoWriMo this past November.)

Who knows, maybe if I continued to push it, I would've broken through. Maybe if I had just tried a little harder--blocked Facebook and Tumblr, turned off my phone, and holed myself up in my room with music blaring--I would've written more words this month.

The problem with that, though, is that I would be forcing it too much.

Writing isn't about how fast you finish something, or how many words you write. It's about the story. It's about the discovery; people and places and adventures that you could only dream about. Whether you take your time and spend years on a story, or rush through it in a matter of days, the result should still be the same.

Everyone writes differently. What's most important is figuring out what works best for you.

For me, it simply depends on the story.

Until later,

- Justyne

About Failure (and Giving Up)

Hello, everyone! I'm back, 100%.

First: Camp NaNoWriMo results. Unfortunately, I did not win; my goal was to write 27,000 words (over the course of 9 different short stories), and by the end of Wednesday I only had about 17,100 words (and 4 different short stories) finished.

Have you ever reached the point of a project--be it for school or work or anything else--where the harsh reality of the situation sinks in and it dawns on you that it is physically impossible to finish in time? It's a weird feeling; like a mix of disappointment, utter relief, and that weird sensation that you should be working frantically on something when you have nothing urgent to work on.

It's not giving up, per say. It's more like realizing that you only have four hours left to turn 10,000 unwritten words into five different short stories. It's realizing that, in order to finish on time, you would have to write 2,500 words every half hour--which means writing constantly, nonstop, for four hours and hoping that you finish slightly before midnight so you can validate your word count (and also praying that your hands don't fall off in the process). And this isn't even taking into consideration the fact that you haven't even begun to think of how the plots will work for two of your 5 remaining stories.

So yeah. Didn't give up. Simply just realized my inevitable failure and decided to play Sims for the final few hours, instead.

In all seriousness, though, I don't consider this a true failure. I accomplished quite a bit this month--I finished 4 different stories (3 of which I absolutely loved working on, by the way), and more words between them than I originally anticipated. Sure, I don't get to print off another fancy certificate to put on the wall beside my desk, but I am closer to the end of this project than I was this time last month.

Bright side, people. Always look on the bright side.

There was more I wanted to cover, this week, but after writing most of it down, I realized that it made the blog post stretch out a fair bit more than I wanted it to. So, I shall save it for next week.


Until later,

- Justyne

BRB

Hello there! Didn't blog last week. Writer's block, if you want an excuse. (But you probably don't.)

I did have another, longer, much, much better blog post planned for this.

HOWEVER.

There are 6 days left for Camp NaNoWriMo and I'm less than halfway done. So. I'm just gonna go work on that.


Until later,

- Justyne

Prepare Yourselves...

...for Camp NaNoWriMo.

If you'll recall, I attempted Camp NaNoWriMo last August; with, uh, somewhat less than successful results.

The first round of Camp NaNoWriMo 2014 is coming up next month, in April, and I think I'm ready to give it another go.

I think one of my favourite parts about Camp NaNoWriMo is that is has more options than the regular NaNoWriMo. You have the option to write a novel, or a script or collection of short stories. You can set your own word count, be it the traditional 50,000 or 25,000 or 100,000. It makes the challenge more interesting; everyone's working not only on different stories, but in different mediums and at different lengths. (This year, I'm working on a novel told through a collection of short stories, all based on fairy tales.)

Another thing I like about it are the cabins--completely optional, but really cool. Last summer I was introduced to a whole new online writing community, that have since helped me power through my writing in sprints. Cabins are a great way to meet new people, who are working on projects similar to yours. (You can also request specific cabin mates, but what's the fun in that?)

Writing in a group is fun. It was something I always loved about my creative writing class, and continued to love during Camp NaNoWriMo last year. (Even though most of my cabin mates lived in the UK and thus were always sprinting at times I was unavailable for.)

If you've ever wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo, but the 50,000 word goal was too daunting for you, I would suggest giving Camp NaNoWriMo a try next month. Set your own goal, and come join in on the fun!


Are you participating next month?

Until later,

- Justyne