Camp NaNoWriMo August 2012: Thoughts On Finishing

Well, I finished. I wasn’t even sure that I would do the August session of Camp NaNo, but I did, and I finished. My goal was to finish my novel from the June session, since that wasn’t quite complete. And after this month of writing, I now have a 50,027-word novel with a normal-sized beginning, a huge middle, and a tiny ending. I meant to alternate who narrated my chapters, but I gave up on that because I don’t like one of my narrators. I have some plot details that don’t quite add up, so I need to go through and fix those. I think my novel could be even longer – maybe several hundred pages longer, because I ended up having my characters visit just two places in the past instead of 6 or 7 like I had planned.

But I still enjoyed Camp. Am I glad that it is over?

Yes!

Just before our NYC vacation, I got an idea for my NaNoWriMo novel. It was about cloning and I thought it was pretty cool. I was going to write it for November, even though I was tired of science fiction. Around a week ago I had another idea and I decided to use that one instead. I’m going to write about a school for kids who either have magical powers or aren’t quite human. (Because they’re vampires or werewolves or whatever.) Yes, I know that’s been done a lot, but I think it’ll be cool, and already I have more ideas for that story than I had for the one about clones. The school story idea came from some of the books I was rereading at the moment: Harry Potter, All Men Of Genius, and Twilight. (I know, ick. Just hear me out.) The school elements came from the first two and the non-human kids element came from the first and the last. I was thinking about how I could create some non-lame vampires. (By writing them, of course. I’m not going to bite anyone!)

I enjoyed Camp, but I’m also glad that it is over, because I have plenty of other stuff to do. I can’t wait for school to start – that will be September 4th this year. I’m ridiculously yet unashamedly nerdy that way. I like summer a lot, but it’s definitely harder to structure my time when I don’t have that much to do (comparitively speaking – I don’t think that many teenagers write a novel for two months so I’m far busier than they are, but I’m certainly less busy than I am during the school year). I think it’s actually easier to get more done when you’re busy because you make better use of your time, knowing that it is limited.

I have a lot of books that I want to read, both for school and on my own. For example, I really need to pick up the pace on my reading of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy if I want to have them all finished by the time the first Hobbit movie is in theaters, so that I can go see it and it will hopefully make sense. (I say hopefully because, hey, I’ve read the Harry Potter books over and over again and most of the movies still make no sense at all.)

Thanks to All Men Of Genius, I want to read more steampunk. (If you’ve read any really, really good steampunk, please tell me the titles in the comments!) I think I’ll try my hand at writing some too. I like reading science fiction but writing it is a pain because for it to be good, you have to actually research things and not make them up. Steampunk is science fiction but because it takes place in the Victorian era, you don’t need to know nearly as much science. I wouldn’t have to research the vital statistics of a mammoth or understand exactly how cloning works. Perfect.

I’m going to make characters bios and a story outline for my November novel, which I haven’t really bothered to do before. Hopefully this will make NaNoWriMo much easier this time around. However, since I need a break from even thinking about month-long writing challenges, I’m not going to start that before September 14 unless I feel like it. That will give me one and half months to plan out my novel before NaNoWriMo starts, which is plenty of time.

But wait, that’s not all! I have still more writing projects! I’m going to write to several of my favorite authors: Linda Newbery, Kirsten Miller, Peter Abrahams, and Terry Pratchett. I can’t decide if I should write to J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, and Lev AC Rosen. The first two are incredibly famous and get tons of fan mail (literally). I’ve already kind of written to Rosen through my blog, so I might not bother with a letter. I also plan to write to Quentin Blake, illustrator of Roald Dahl’s books. Speaking of letters, I have some friends I need to write. I’m really sorry, Katelyn! I meant to answer your letter dated June 20 and since then you’ve sent another one and a postcard! You’ll get one soon. You too, Ainhoa.

Other than that, I’ll be blogging as usual. Some of the posts I have planned include book reviews, stuff about writing, music, and homeschooling, and a trip inside my weird mind. I also have a fanfiction I want to write. Yes, you heard me correctly. I know fanfictions generally have a bad reputation but mine will actually use proper English and it will be hilarious. It’ll be a Harry Potter/Hunger Games crossover fanfiction; I’ve been working on it in my head since March.

Guess what? NaNoWriMo starts in 60 days!