Camp NaNoWriMo 2016

April’s almost over! Can you believe it? 2016 is already 1/3 of the way through.

April’s a big month for me, just like July and November. April is Camp NaNoWriMo, which is kind of a spinoff of NaNoWriMo. Instead of separating into regions, you’re put into virtual cabins of up to 12 people, and you can make your own word count goal. I’ve done it before, and been grouped with strangers, and it was interesting, but I didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking to them online.

This year, our region decided to get a cabin together. It’s been so much fun, mostly because I know everyone in my cabin! We have multiple conversations a day, and we can encourage each other to keep writing. Plus, we can also meet in person, which makes it even better.

This month, I really wanted to do revisions on Commissioned. I’ve gone through one revision already, but I’d just gotten responses from my first round of betas, and there were a few things that needed to be changed. I also wanted to double check the voice of both of my characters. I printed off copies, separating them into Nara and Yaru piles, and then started revisions.

I started with Nara, and hers required the most revisions. My betas told me that her motivation didn’t make sense, and didn’t quite fit with her personality. It took me almost two weeks to finish her section, working as feverishly as I could on my days off. Then I got to Yaru’s point of view, and things started to click. Since I changed Nara’s motivation, his made so much more sense. Honestly, it only required a few tweaks, especially in the end and the beginning, but the middle was pretty solid. I finished his revision in one week.

I’m using this last week to go through, put the parts back together, and read it to myself out loud before sending it out to the next set of betas May 1.

So if anyone’s keeping track, that’s six months from November 1. In that time, I’ve written and revised 484,513 words. Almost half a million. I’m still kind of reeling. After deciding to make writing my second job, and devoting an actual amount of time to it, it’s kind of hard to stop.

How about the rest of you? How are your writing goals going? Any other goals for this year?