I am so thrilled that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which occurs each November, has a couple of "camps" during the rest of the year. Between my teaching loads with Brave Writer and Heritage Christian School's East County 2 Class Day, I barely have time to keep up my e-mail, much less write 50,000 words in November.
I did Camp NaNoWriMo in April, which with our two weeks of Easter vacation, a light teaching load at Brave Writer, and my Expository Essay students at Class Day deeply ensconsed in their MLA Research essays, I managed to complete. These "summer camps" are much less intensive than November's Herculean task with "campers" able to set their own goals rather than the "50,000 words or bust" mentality of the usual NaNoWriMo. In April I set myself a goal of 30,000 words and just squeaked under the deadline at 11:58 with 30,002 words. Whew!!
So I'm tackling Camp NaNoWriMo this month, with July's goal the same as April's: 30,000 words, mostly on my current novel entitled Only by Moonlight. I also want to work on a short story that I started in May if I have time, but I really want my focus to be on my current novel. It's been slow going, with my posting a chapter monthly on average instead of weekly as I have in the past. But then, these chapters are much longer than the ones I have written in my two previous novels. (I think I've learned my lesson about keeping to shorter chapters, at least in writing the first draft; I can always combine chapters in the editing process once I have a completed first draft.
I'm teaching the summer Fan Fiction class at Brave Writer right now, but I should be able to keep up with writing 1000 words/day (with the 4th of July off) while teaching since I'm not homeschooling the boybarians.
Right now I'm at about 4500 words (a wee bit behind) and plan to spend much of today writing once I get my class posts caught up. So I hope to have a very productive month with Camp NaNoWriMo!!
Writing happily,
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