Camp NaNoWriMo Prep!

Camp NaNoWriMo: April starts Saturday. If you don’t know what Camp is, well, it’s one of two sessions (next one is in July) that is like, a companion to NaNoWriMo, which takes place every November. While the event in November has a specific goal: write 50k words in a novel, the Camp sessions are more personal goal-oriented and making it what you want of it. You can check out the Camp NaNo site here.

I’m participating this year! And I’m going to lay out all my goals for this month. A lot of you know I have been working on the first draft of my new novel Sharp Hollows since I started it, you guessed it, NaNoWriMo 2016 back in November. Here is an extremely short comp blurb of what I am working on: 

Shameless meets The Mummy in a story about a courtesan hoping to restore her family’s honor by locating the tomb of their ancestor’s last king.

As I type this, my draft is sitting at over 85k words. I’m trying to wrap this up in about the next 15k. It would be really really really nice to finish the first draft before April 1st. And that’s because my biggest goal for Camp this month will be to revise my novel one time through. Though, that isn’t the only thing I am doing this month! Here is everything I plan on doing:

PRINT THE FIRST DRAFT

Already bought a new package.

Yes, so I do need to finish the first draft and print it out completely. As of right now, my MS is at 300 pages in a Word doc. After this puppy gets printed out, I’ll be taking my favorite pens to use as I read and mark it up with everything that is wrong with it (and star and heart some things that I do really like because you got to balance that out so you don’t feel like complete trash even if the first draft is.)

I’m trying to decide how I want to edit this. You might remember for the first novel I wrote (my Red Riding Hood retelling) I read through the whole thing before I went back and made the changes I made on the manuscript into my new computer draft. This took me damn near forever and I don’t know why. I’m wondering if it will be easier for me to mark up a chapter and then immediately go into my laptop and change it. We’ll see how it goes.

MAKE SURE THAT INSPIRATION IS CONSTANT

My story board!

Whenever I feel like my inspiration for the project is starting to dry up, I go back and find things that will re-inspire me. I created my inspiration board that laid out a lot of images that remind me of what I’m working on. You can watch me put together this board in my writing vlog posted last month on my YouTube Channel. All of these images came from my Pinterest board for this novel project that you can also check out here. If you haven’t already, create a board for your project, it really helps you visualize your world and characters.

I am also a big fan of music, so creating a playlist that corresponds with my project is a must. I’m doing something different this month. While I have a playlist I listen to quite often that is for this project, while I’m editing I want to switch it up a bit. I’m creating a new playlist that only consists of movie/instrumental scores. I posted a question over on Twitter last week asking for some score suggestions and I got SO many great recs that if you’re trying to find out where to start when looking for some great movie scores, check out this thread. It was seriously so helpful.

FILLING OUT MY STORY BINDER

Binder from Target!

So a few months back, I made this story binder thing after seeing Ali doing it on her YouTube channel and thought, yo this is a good idea. So I made one, printed out all these writing work sheets and then left it alone while I was writing my first draft. It’s very empty. While I am just waiting eagerly to fill in everything I can about the Sharp Hollows world, I decided to wait until after I completed the first draft. That way, after I finish the first draft I can hold off a week before I dive back in. In the mean time, I can start filling in everything about my characters, my world, the politics, and the magic system. This way, I have a better idea of the rules as I go into the read-through and the second draft. If you are looking for some writing worksheets, check out this website. It is very awesome and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The inside of the binder – how I organized it.

Example of my (empty) writing worksheet.

GOAL CONCLUSION

So, by the end of April, I am hoping to have:

• Read through my first draft once and mark it up
• Filled out all my writing worksheets so I can better understand the world I created
• Have a bomb af writing score playlist
• If I have hammed through that first read through quickly, then transfer my Word doc first draft over to Scrivener and maybe get a decent dent into the edits of draft 2?!

What about you guys? Are you going to be participating in Camp this April? If you are, let me know what you plan on doing for your own goals, I would love to know!

– Lainey