This was my fifth Camp NaNoWriMo session!
This Camp session was different. After getting valuable feedback from my two main readers of my first draft of “Experiences From Camp,” I knew it was time to start the first round of editing.
Original word count: 51,960 words (161 pages)
On April 1, I printed out my first draft for the first time ever! I made the 161 pages double-sided, hole-punched them, and put it in a binder.
Almost every night for the first week, I sat down with a blue pen and pink Post-It notes, and read through the draft.
I added page numbers, designated chapters, page breaks, questions about the plot, sentence structure, and recommendations from my two readers.
I was very pleased with my efforts. I faltered a bit after the initial read-through, but I read through nearly 52,000 words!
Because I was editing this time, and not really writing, this Camp session was very different. However, I met my goal!
Final Thoughts
I have a lot of work to do now that I’ve completed the first round of editing. I also started using one of the beautiful journals that I received for my birthday last year to ask additional questions about the work and jot down other notes and thoughts.
My main goal is to send the second draft of the novel to my two readers, Amanda and Mike, by the end of June.
Before I do that, though, I need to translate my handwritten edits and other thoughts from my journal into the Draft 2 document on my computer. For some reason, and I think it’s mainly fear, I’ve been resisting doing this for the entire month of May. However, I do have a couple of days off of work coming my way, so I’m hoping to finally sit down (Well, stand up at my desk, LOL) and knock these edits and additions out!
Have you done NaNoWriMo in November before?
Have you done Camp NaNoWriMo before?
Let me know what you think!
Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂
Hot Shot Headlines 
Nice!
I’ve never done anything NaNoWriMo related… I think mostly just because life is so overwhelming as it is, and it’s hard enough to write a few episodic short stories for fun each month. I woke up early this morning, and for some reason I was feeling stressed about unfinished creative projects.
Thank you!
You’re not alone. I have several friends who have wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but never have. I was nervous about it at first, especially after I got married. My wedding anniversary is in November, so I always feel a bit weird dedicating so much of my time to writing in the month of November. However, Al is incredibly gracious! He knows how important writing is to me.
I’m sorry you’ve been stressed! That stinks.
Thank you… I don’t know why that happened yesterday. Maybe if I can’t do as much with friends because of all the restrictions, it’ll give me time to do more creative stuff… although it sounds like free time might be in short supply with all the changes involved at my job.
I’m in a weird place, too. I have Friday and Monday off of work, and I want to do all the things. But, I’m making a list and trying to stick to it. I want to enjoy the time off, and be somewhat productive with a few things.
Good luck!
Same to you!