Camp Nanowrimo July 2014 day 3

So, I have tried to get my blog up and running and spent a week fiddling around with it. Alas, my reviews may have to take a few weeks to get going the way I really want them to because of Camp. 

My New Year's resolution  this year (instead of trying to lose weight or work out more which always just seem like false goals except for the one year after having my daughter I actually had weight to lose and did) is to write a completed version of a story. I participated in Nanowrimo 2013 during the month of November and hit a wall in that story at about 23,000 words out of 50,000. Alas, that awesome sci-fi story set in-game has been placed on the burner until I can untangle some of that plot line. 

Ultimately, I want to be one of the authors that everyone wants to review and write to me for author interviews and to have fans follow me as obsessively as I follow my favorite authors. :D dreaming big, but hey, if Veronica Roth can make it big with a third book at 25... why can't I? 

So while I have no been playing around with my blog or teaching my toddler for 3 hours a day since summer vacation started, I have been adding to my salt-n-pepper book. Yes, I am handwriting this baby. I have a short attention span for sitting at a computer and writing creatively. The computer is too dangerous to just get lost in for me to be able to handle writer's block on. I started Nano 2013 in a notebook and then started transcribing. I found this to be a HUGE mistake. My creative mind went into edit mode while transcribing and I wanted to fix my story when I didn't even fully understand it. 

This story I am currently working on started off with a dream I had May 1st that has turned into  a whooping 29,000 words. Woot woot. Super excited about it. I tackled this story head on in May and have picked it back up for this month (July). My camp goal is another 20,000 words... a meager goal some may say, but I'm slowly trudging along towards achieving my goal. I mean I have a toddler to chase and a job to get for the fall. And that's not even talking about all the gaming I would love to do (with the hubby). 

Anyway, I have been on a roll coming up with idea after idea and this story just seems to flow at the moment. This story I also noticed I have been doing a few things differently than the last story that I hope to apply to other stories. 

1. Hand writing this and not allowing myself (yet) to transcribe my work. This would shift my brain from creating to editing and I'm not ready for that yet. And yes, that means I'm hand counting my entire story. O.o you may be thinking I'm crazy, but it has come to be quite pleasant. When I'm struggling to think of ideas, I count. Or when I begin afresh the next day, I use that counting to get my mind in gear for writing. 
2. I seem to have an aloofness about myself while writing. I'm not getting too caught up in if the sentences make sense, how my words are spelled, or even if what I'm writing might be back story.I know I have spelling mistakes, and frankly a huge portion of my story feels like back story. If I didn't have this though, I wouldn't be able to keep going.
3. I am trying to wrap characters that are already existing around to knowing and relating to other characters in my story rather than just create a new person. This seems to simplify my writing and put less stress on myself for some reason. For example my main character has a mom... later my main character meets an important leader who talks about a wonderful woman from his past he needs to find. Well that woman instead of being new, becomes the mother. (That is actually a really cool story plot... hmm). 

This story feels like it's getting bigger... I can never seem to do small. I feel the universe I am creating inside me and it feels nice to be getting it out in writing. Here is my excerpt if you are interested in following my stories progress: 

"The Great Divide has made it so the magical beings and the humans now live separate, humans on the surface and magical beings in the underground grotto. To keep the separation and the life force for the grotto strong and safe, 5 Enchanters were appointed to watch each of the five gem stones that power the central tree which glows underground with nourishment like a sun. The Enchanter sends humans down to the grotto whom are fully trained and accepted by the Mystical Ambassadors. Almost a millennia goes by and much in the human's ways of knowledge is closed up in dusty chronicles on shelves. When an Enchanter's apprentice is denied his access 6 months of training in the grotto before becoming the next-in-line Enchanter, life as beings know it will not be the same."

I plan on sharing a bit about the beings I am choosing to incorporate in my story. Some of them will be traditional creatures, some we know with a twist, and I a few from cultures that I do not know a lot of lore about so I can help people learn about other cool creatures. 

Stay tuned for more about my story!