A report on Camp NANOWRIMO

As I announced a few weeks ago, I participated in this year's Camp Nano. As always, April is more productive for me than November. I accept that this is my style.

My goal was to reach 100k in a month, or 2/3s of the draft I have planned for this MS.

Here's a screenshot of my month's progress:



As you can see, I still technically have 3 days in which to sprint ahead and reach the full 100k. However, I've encountered some questions in regards to my outline and need to spend some time answering them before I can push onward. These questions are monumental enough that writing through without answering them might require me to trash an entire section of the book which would be a waste of everyone's time.

So I'm stopping now, at 88643 words. I'm crazy proud of myself. This was a huge project to attempt in a short period of time and let me tell you a few things I've learned this month:

1. Outlines. I'm totally converted to a full and detailed outline. They rock, and make the creative process so much smoother.
2. I can take a couple of days off to think and regroup, even in the middle of a huge push. Instead of halting my progress, the time is super effective to help me recharge and get through massive amounts of good work. In the 28 days I participated this month, I took 11 off. Chew on that for a moment, would you? In other words, pondering is good stuff. So is taking care of your physical and mental health.
3. Physical and mental health can throw curve balls but will power conquers all.
4. My husband is the greatest. 
5. So are my parents.

I'm VERY proud of the writing I've done this month, and while much of it is...well, first drafts aren't clean. But still, I have high hopes for this project. It's really coming along well.

Now I'm off to work out those outlining questions I have...

Spring = New Life

Ah, spring.

I love spring.

I love the flowers and sunshine, the long walks and the rain.

I do my best writing in the spring. Actually, I've written all the drafts for all my books in the spring/early summer. It's what works for me.
This spring I'm participating in Camp NanoWrimo as I do every year--and like every year before, I've won! Which is to say, I've written 50k words on a manuscript this month.
Actually, since I had a great outline and knew my regular drafting speed and how much time I'd have this month, I doubled the goal to 100k. Today takes me to 67k, so I'm well on my say to achieving the goal.

As for the project, well...remember Prelude in Dragon Minor? I love the concept and the characters and even the general plot line...but the draft I wrote a couple years ago just doesn't work. It's too severely broken to work. It worked better as a massive 95k brainstorming session. I took what I liked, wrote up an incredibly detailed backstory and worldbuilding and character sketching manual for myself over the last several months and scrapped the draft.
So far, at 67k into the new draft, I've only kept...maybe 5k from the original. So it's not necessarily a new project, but it is a new book, if that makes any sense.

Wish me luck as I pound out the remainder of this draft!

Dr. Anderson's Journal

I got published!!!!

Yep, you read that right. I have something published outside of school projects. Woot!

DR ANDERSON'S JOURNAL is a short story about a woman who works on a spaceship whose mission is to find a new planet for humans to start over. It won second place in the LTUE conference journal, Sybil's Scriptorium and was an absolute blast to write.

Without further ado, here is the published version of my story. Enjoy. It's a really great story and I'm incredibly proud of it.

Oh, and if you want to purchase the anthology, you can find it here. The other stories in it are really cool, so I recommend it :)