Cerulean Mornings

I am doing okay so far in Camp, but it's mostly because of the habit I formed last month of writing at least an hour everyday. I have been so busy that I basically only have the hour between 11 and 12 midnight at night to write. Thought it was going to amount to a miniscule amount of writing, but so far, it's working out better than I expected? Now that I have some kind of time management locked down maybe I can work more. Like, for example, today. It's my b-day, and I'm taking it easy, so the only thing I'm going to do is write.

I think I can definitely finish the Nachi Interlude this month. I have no idea what to work on after that, though, because the main story bores me now ahaha, but the side story plot line is still a giant mess soooooo, well, one step at a time, I guess. We can worry about the next one after I finish the current section. I swear to god the Nachi Interlude is going to be 10k on its own. I mean, hey, it's not my fault he's so compelling and I have motivation and plot points pretty much all figured out for him, eh? Need to work on his voice better, and all the 'lesser' Bronze saints all need to have their own voice, but I ain't got time to figure out 5 more people, so I'm just going to designate some as "more" or "less" informal sounding. Also, this is the first time I'm actually writing Shiryu, so....well, that will need to be figured out too.

I don't believe this, but I'm doing Camp NaNo again haha. I mean, I try to do it every year, sometimes twice a year, and then somehow I always end up failing (except when that one time I didn't, but that was a fluke). And then I'd be dejected for a while until the next burst. It's almost a tradition at this point. Plus, I think every third of a year I push myself on writing is always a good thing. I just need to not set ridiculous goals. If I simply severely undercount how much I can write in a day, I think I'd be able to get it done. At least that's the thought process.

Anyway, this year I'm not going to make any grand declarations, and I'm going to try to keep this blog somewhat up to date. If I have to update word counts here all the time I'd be hold accountable at least a little, right? Doesn't help that my birthday is first week of April so I always slack off at the start of the April NaNoWriMo, which then derails my entire trajectory. Well, not this year! I can't promise anything about meeting word count but derailing? Won't happen! Procrastination brain will behave; I will make sure of it!

I gave myself a very reasonable word count this month: 10k. That's about 333 word a day. I can do that. The do-this-everyday part might be tricky, because I am taking the day of my birthday off, but I think I can make it up. Whatever. I just said I'm not making super solid promises, but I will sincerely give it a try. I've been sincerely giving my novel a try all year so far, and it's progressing the way I think a novel should progress, so that's something. 

But yeah, Camp NaNo 22. New beginnings always make me motivated. It's why I really like the actual NaNoWriMo too. 

Well folks, here we are again! You know, I've always been pretty good with my April goals and then just divebombs in July, and let's not even get started on the actual NaNoWriMo in November. But I'm making this a tradition, so this is yet another year of Camp NaNo on the way.

I'm doing it a bit different this year. Instead of just counting my words for my novel, I will also be working on some fan projects because, well, why not? So it's going to be a cumulative word count. I've set it at 20k but am secretly hoping to go beyond that haha. (Or I can fail miserably, but you gotta stay positiive). I'm also not going to try to go by words per day, because that's really demotivating for me. I'm just going to write as much as I can in the slotted time I give myself - which is about 3-4 hours on week days and 1-2 hours on weekend. It's a lot - definitely more than I usually do (I tend to take weekends off even though I don't exactly plan it that way. Just works out like that with all my weekly chores and responsibilities.) But hey, that's why it's Camp! A mini WriMo. (Speaking of, maybe I should actually set my word count at 25k? Exactly half of the November one and nicely divided between the April and July sessions. Thoughts for future years, not this one). As long as I keep myself motivated and focused enough to actually fill all those hours I planned, I might make it. Seriously. The hardest part is not to get distracted. Which is why I'm continuing my media blackout.

I'm not sure I talked that much about the media blackout here, but the point is just to block all distracting websites. Mostly reddit, cnn, and kotaku, which are the three big ones I get sucked into. It's not like Tumblr where once I'm done browsing my dashboard I'm done browsing. No, once I get on reddit I tend to stay for hours, which is both bad for my productivity and my mental health. I've tried in February to stay off those websites and my productivity definitely improved. And then I lapsed in March. Right. So for April, none of that, okay? Use the damn blockers!

Anyway that's the current state of things. And actually I'm certainly going to try to crosspost my fanfic related things here. Not because I worry about Tumblr but, I like here equally haha. I really want to use this blog more and more geeky content seems a good way to go.

OK I did the math if I do solid two hours of writing every day until the 30th I could make my Camp NaNo goal. 

Aye yai yai how did I get so behind? Stupid health issues taking up my energy! Geez I was doing fairly well, too.

Push push. You can do it!

Yeah...so....I've decided that making word count for Camp this month is probably not going to happen. Not just word count, actually. In fact, if I don't change up my motivation method I ain't gonna get nothing written in any timely manner and at this point, really, that's unacceptable. I refuse to believe I suck this much as a human being. So I decided instead of word count, I'm going to do hours. At least one hour of solid writing per day instead of absolute words. Although granted, I still may not win because I'm starting, uh, 9 days into the 30-day challenge, and the minimum requirement is 30 hours, but if I can consistently push myself then I'd consider that a win.

So new cabin (randomly assigned, which is fine), new goals, and hopefully a new improved me (ha!). At least I have stopped coughing like a sick dog like I had been for the past month and really, that's become super tiresome. I need to be physically and mentally well again, and that require some serious effort. So let's just see how this change of goals (more achievable, so less intimidating) would pan out. I hope it'll pan out.