April Showers Bring May Flowers

And April absence brings May blogging? That's my attempt at being creative. Obviously I am still working on getting back into this whole writing thing. But I still (nerdily) chuckled at my little joke.

To start us off, I wanted to talk about my (sort of) participation in Camp NaNoWriMo in April. If I would have set my goal at 10,000 words, I definitely would have achieved it. But 50,000 did not happen unfortunately, a lot due to motivation and some due to life.

The more times I set specific word goals, the more I realize that writing for word count is not for me. I would assume that this strategy is one that would motivate me, because I am such a scheduler and words are easy to schedule in each day. But I feel that sometimes it takes away from the actual writing process, and I feel rushed and/or overwhelmed (depending on the day), which makes writing not as fun. I don't have the time to really think about what I want to write and how I want to write it without feeling on the clock.

Several months into deciding on my own writing process, I 've learned that a deadline is important, but since this is my first attempt at writing a book, the higher word count is not going to get me there. Based on how I write and think and feel, I should be writing less so I don't feel pressured or guilty if I don't achieve whatever goal I have set for myself. Because there are some days where I really exceed my goal and others where I don't.

So I think this was my last time participating in NaNo, at least with this book based on where it is. I find that difficult because I really like the idea of it--writing as much as you can without thinking about it as much--but I know that it's not as realistic for me based on my personality. But I guess we'll see what happens come July 1...