Mid-Month July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Check In

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. For the past couple weeks, I have been participating in July Camp NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I thought it would be fun to do a mid-month check in to see where I’m at so far and maybe set some goals for the rest of the month.

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How’s it going so far

For those of you don’t know what I’m working on, I’m writing draft 4 of my current WIP, Of Moonflowers and Myths. I talked about it in my Pretty Deadly Words #2 post, which has a lot of details about it.

I haven’t participated in a NaNoWriMo challenge since last year, so I wasn’t sure how this one was going to play out. July has been pretty busy for me so didn’t know how much I was going to be able to write. So far, I’ve written around 16.2k words, which is on track of where I need to be to reach my goal, which is 35k words.

With this draft, I’ve rewritten some of the scenes to be more realistic and less awkward. For example, in my previous drafts, two of my main characters meet in the library, which I don’t think anyone does. It was also really badly written and wasn’t believable at all. This time, I made them meet in class because they got paired together for a group project. This is much better and also allowed them to get to know each other better.

I’ve also worked on getting rid of unnecessary filler scenes and am attempting to not repeat the same words as much. I have a tendency to use certain words a lot, which I’m trying to avoid.

My characters are becoming more unique, but I’m still working on developing them. I feel like my two girl main characters need a bit more distinction in some of their characterization. Speaking of characters, I made character moodboards for my three main characters. I am in love with them.

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My goals for the rest of the month

It would be great to reach 35k by the end of the month, but I know that might not happen. I’m going to be gone for a week, which means that I will inevitably fall behind. I’m going to have to do a lot of catch up when I get back. But, even with that setback, my goal is that I can get as far as possible.

Like I said earlier, I’m still working on developing characters, so continuing that is something I want to work on. Along with developing characters, adding more emotion into my writing is another thing I would like to work on. I’m not great at expressing my emotions, so getting my characters to express their emotions on page isn’t easy.

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Overall, Camp has been going really well so far. I’m excited that I’m writing this draft 4 and hoping that it will turn out as good as I’m imagining it to be.

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Are you working on any writing projects? Have you ever participated in Camp NaNoWriMo?