Camp NaNoWriMo

I was snooping around on the internet when I decided to revisit the NaNoWriMo website, mainly because I was trying to see if my Scrivener coupon was still good. It is. (Note-to-self, it expires in September.) Anyway, I came across the brand spanking new Camp NaNoWriMo website and signed up. Apparently the site is for those who wish to pull a NaNoWriMo in July and August. I guess you pick one or the other, or both. Either way, I've signed up which means I'll be writing a 50,000-word novel in July and/or August.

Oh, crap.

And I'll be writing it by hand as I just bought this really awesome journal from Barnes & Noble that looks 200 years old and fits the context of my story perfectly. My hands already hurt. I wonder if my hand will even be functional by the end of July and/or August. Well, the point of doing NaNoWriMo is pushing yourself towards that finish line. I did just give myself a deadline for my current WIP, currently titled, The Hartigan War (I say 'currently' because as I mentioned in my previous post, this WIP has gone through more name changes/identity crises than I can count). I've been doodling with it for the past 8 years and I've officially announced my deadline for completion at October 31. Just in time for the next NaNoWriMo.

I imagine that by the time I've finished 3 months of handwriting fury the blisters on my left hand will have their own blister babies, complete with condos and tennis courts. And my brain will either be infinitely stronger during this word production marathon, or it will have overheated and melted out of my ears. Either way, by the end of it I should have one steaming pile of NOVEL that I can call my own. Squee.

Let's see how this one goes.

What is Lent? AKA: I'm already breaking my promise

According to Wikipedia's Lent page, because it's SOOO accurate:

Lent in the Catholic tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And as I stated in my previous post, I'm trying my darndest to give up procrastinating for Lent. How is that going? Not too well.

Last night I pulled an all-nighter staying up until 5am to not just finish, but WRITE my speech about the Mozart Effect (MOZART!!!!!). I put that speech off for so long. I'd know about the speech since the first day of class in January. We were officially handed out the assignment about three weeks ago. I finally started writing it less than 24 hours away from the due date. Despite all of this I did surprisingly well.

I have no idea why I can't just sit down and do the work assigned to me in a reasonable amount of time. I don't know why I become so productive when there's hardly enough time to do the work. I guess I work well under pressure. That might be why I did so well in NaNoWriMo, a competition where you stretch the limits of your creative writing ability.

For NaNoWriMo I got off to a great start, another thing I'm very good at. There was no school, there was nothing else to do, and since both the internet and cable were out there were no distractions. But halfway through November, when the telly came back on and I could do something more besides watching Dr. Wayne Dyer on PBS for six hours, I began goofing off again. Then school started back. I went an entire week without writing a word. And that added up tremendously.

In the last week of NaNoWriMo I was once again in a mad rush. I WANTED THOSE WINNER GOODIES! (Even though I did not yet know what they would be.) Things started working out again, the cable and internet went off again, Dr. Amen and his Brain in Love program came on so much that I had memorized half of the 2-hour program, and I got back to work. I finished at 1:50am the day of the deadline and verified my word count at school. The site sent me this:

Among other things...

This was the biggest project I've ever finished. This was the first time I was ever able to finish anything of real importance for me. I was so proud of myself, despite the fact that by the last day of the 30-day contest, I no longer had the mental capacity to form a complete sentence on paper. My fingers literally locked up over the keyboard every time I tried to type, but I got it done.

Which brings me to the point of this excessive rambling: Procrastination can be a good thing. Procrastinating is what forced me to have to be creative and pull words out of my ass and put them on paper in a mostly comprehensible manner.

But it certainly would've gone a lot better had I just been able to get the words on the paper in the first place.

So come on, Lent. Bring it.

Editing Temple

I'm going to start editing my NaNoWriMo novel. It's called "The Temple of the Red Velvet Jesus". It's about a boy who discovers something shocking about himself, something that threatens to destroy his entire life. It's a comedy.

I've tried (not very hard) to fix whatever happened to the template. I don't care enough at this point to make sure it's working perfectly. So much for perfectionism.

In an attempt to actually get my NaNo edited. I've given myself a deadline. I will have the second draft done by 31 January. It's really soon, but necessary. I'd been trying to write this novel for years and wasn't able to do so. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and finished it in 30 days. Hmm...

Anyway, to recap:

2nd draft to be done by 31 January 2011

I want to be able to use that Create Space offer and get a free proof copy. I want to hold my book in my hands. And as a quasi-graphic design student, I'm designing my own cover. I'll post it: a) when I figure out how, and b) when I actually get around to doing it.

This second draft isn't going to be perfect, as my 1st draft barely made sense, but it's serving to make it readable to others, although at this stage no one will be reading it.