Camp NaNoWriMo 2016

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Sorry for the late update …

In April, I decided to keep up the tradition of working on the Camp (and the “set your own goal” version) NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

I got a late start to planning (lot of stuff happened in March), and then started with what I thought was a good story. A week into Camp … I was well on my way.

But … by the seventh (7^th), I began wandering off. I guess that’s what happens when you’re at camp.

I found I wasn’t alone … thank goodness. A lot of other campers were starting off with one story and finding themselves drawn to something else. I was also vacillating between 10,000 to 25,000 word counts.

I will be honest – the end of March was not good. My mom got a call from her gynecologist and the “C” word was announced. So, my mind really was not in this. But, I knew she’d feel worse if I said I couldn’t do it.

I hung in there though.

Thankfully, we have good counselors (or the NaNo Sprint Twitter volunteers). They gave us permission to start over and include the word counts for BOTH stories (the old one and the new one) and gave us the “green flag” to go on another one.

Yee-haaa!

I was determined to get in there and go for it.

I started on the new story and took off! There were a few days I got low word counts, and some I got HIGH ones. I went for the 25,000 word count goal; figuring that half of the November goal was a good idea given that April is my birthday month.

On April 21^st … I won! Some of the words counts after “winning” ranged from absolutely nothing, to 44 words, to 2180. But … I did it. That’s what matters.

I am planning ahead for July’s Camp session (started about 10 days ago) as there are a LOT of things I’ve got planned for the rest of this month as well as June.

For those who missed it … here are the stats from April 2016’s CampNaNoWriMo session:

April 1st – 1072

 April 2nd – 451

 April 3rd – 1421

 April 4th – 404

 April 5th – 436

 April 6th – 1794

 April 7th – 953 ** [this is where the old story ended; the new one began]

 April 8th – 1406

 April 9th – 1431

 April 10th – 1700 [first time over 1500]

 April 11th – 913

 April 12th – 456

 April 13th – 579

 April 14th – 2214 [first time over 2000]

 April 15th – 1205

 April 16th – 1786

 April 17th – 1961 [this was 10% of the total = 19,610]

 April 18th – 1660

 April 19th – 432

 April 20th – 719

 April 21st – 3424 ** [HIGHEST word count day; also hit the “goal”]

 April 22nd – 638

 April 23rd – 987

 April 24th – 1025

 April 25th – 2180

 April 26th – 44 [WORST word count day]

 April 27th – 207

 April 28th – NO WORDS

 April 29th – BIRTHDAY; Road trip, no writing done

 April 30th – 1306

Now I just need to focus on May, then … I’ll have more time for November. Still trying to get a few ideas together and figure out what story I want to introduce the world to!

For now? Back to writing … or planning and research!

As far as my mom’s diagnosis? You can read about it here on our fundraising page:

https://www.gofundme.com/medwards429

As of note: I did set this up in May 2015 to raise money for Dental work. I kept the URL (campaign) and in January of this year (2016), I had to use it for a residential emergency. I changed it at the end of March for my mom.You can read all the updates on that page.