Camp Nanowrimo July 2021

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Posting for Accountability!

This July, I will be participating in Camp Nanowrimo. I have been a semi-regular participant for years now. I don't always participate in April or July Nano, but this year I need the push. I have a couple of projects and upcoming submission calls that I need to get words on paper for. While my output has been decent this past year, I am going to try to up my game. Each Saturday throughout July, I will be doing an accountability post where I will discuss my progress, process, and any successes or pitfalls I'm facing.

These last few days I have been prepping outlines and making plans. It's easier when my goal is to write a new novel or to edit an existing one. That gives me one project and a definitive word count. Since I'm using Nanowrimo to focus on a number of shorter projects, many of which I can only estimate how long they'll be, it's been tricky making this plan.

I'm also struggling a bit with posting this. I usually prefer to keep my works in progress under wraps, but I'm posting anyway*. Why? Keep myself accountable and I spent too many years writing in secret telling no one and showing no one my work. I'm on a new path now.

*That said, a lot of these are pretty vague on details. Bear with me. A couple of them are group projects and I don't know how much I can discuss. The rest are for submission calls and may not be accepted. They also might fizzle out and not be worth submitting. That happens, too.


The Plan:


Overall Word Count Goal: 50,000


Story #1: Fantasy Short Story.

Goal: 9,000 - Starting word count: 0

Some details: Part of a shared universe fantasy project.


Story #2: Horror Short Story.

Goal: 9,000 - Starting word count: 0

Some details: A story centered on a cursed object. Also part of a group project.


Story #3: Murder Mystery

Goal: 6,000 - Starting word count: 0

Some details: Crafting a murder mystery short story set in an imaginary town.


Story #4: Retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice

Goal: 3,000 - Starting word count: 0

Some details: I'll be exploring this myth from Eurydice's POV.


Story #5: Retelling Alcestis

Goal: 3,000 - Starting word count: 0

Some details: Alcestis has always been one of my favourite myths. I'll be focusing on the moment when Admetus asks Alcestis to give her life for him.


Story #6: Time Travel Novella

Goal: 22,000 - Starting word count: 5,000

Some details: This is a novella I've had on my back burner for a long time. The first draft was actually closer to 10,000, but I've developed a new, better outline and scrapped a lot of that. I really want to finish this one, but time travel is COMPLICATED!


But wait - that's only 47,000 words... what about the other 3,000? I'm saving those as "miscellaneous" because I also have a number of drabbles I want to produce as well as an in-progress novel that needs a couple more scenes. 

This may seem like a lot, but I actually weeded out a number of other projects I was thinking about. I selected these because they excite me and this gives me enough time to edit them before their deadlines. There are way too many great submission calls out there right now.

Anyway, one more day and away we go!

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