Back from Camp NaNoWriMo

I spent July writing the first draft of my Soseono novel via the Camp NaNo challenge. The default challenge is 50,000 words; I met that in the first week, spent four days in torpor hating what I'd written, found a new direction for the story, upped the goal to 100,000 words and met that, too. I ended up with 104,329 words, of which maybe half are salvageable after heavy editing and filling in all the gaps that remain. Let's just say it's more gap than otherwise at this point.

August will be spent on fanfic, to give myself a break from the orig project, plus research on the novel. I never expected that I'd need to concern myself with the Chinese colonies on the Korean peninsula, but that's where the draft took me. Luckily there are some great books on the subject, including the first volume of a full-color illustrated series on the military history of Korea. Squee!

Review: No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

No Plot? No Problem! was recommended on write_away's writing advice book rec thread. It's by National Novel-Writing Month founder Chris Baty, and purports to be a road map to the process of writing a 50,000-word draft of a novel in one calendar month.

The book did at least one thing right for me as a reader: It got me excited about the idea of drafting a novel in a month and I decided to dive in with my own long-dreamed-of novel. I also decided to put off the review of the book until after I had tried the challenge so that I would have a handle on the subject matter. That chance came when I entered the July Novel Writing Month and Camp NaNoWriMo challenges. The following is my recounting of my NaNo experience along with the review of No Plot? No Problem! week-by-week, following the organization of the book.

( An emotional rollercoaster in five weeks )

I believe the true meaning of No Plot, and of timed writing challenges, comes down to this: Discipline, determination, and dedication are how we fight the clinging mud of our doubts and reach for our dreams. That is how we do our true work and make contributions that only we can make. If writing 50,000 words in a month is the way to do that, awesome. If writing every day at a more sedate pace is how to make it happen, awesome. The victory is not against a rival or a deadline or a word count, but against the resistance to creation--which, when you look long and hard at it, is in truth yourself.


Also, did I mention I won?