It's NaNoWriMo time again! Except this time it's Camp NaNoWriMo, which is decidedly different. It's not a bad different. I think it depends on how the cabin turns out. I'm excited at the idea of the six of us doing this together, but at the same time so far we seem like we're mostly solitary writers. My cabin mates seem nice and it's only day four (day three for most of them as they're all from America), so we might end up discussing more things when we get deeper into our stories and across issues or whatnot, though. Again, that's not a bad thing - I find the writing process really personal and would rather not share what's happening with people, except perhaps one particular friend from school who also likes writing and with whom I have had significant discussions about writing and about our worldviews, until it's done. Although, admittedly, I've never really shared any non-school-set writing with anyone. I guess I'm just curious about what the cabin will evolve into and how each cabin would have different experiences depending on the personalities and preferences of those within it. Yeah, uni is changing my thoughts.
The other thing that is different, although in a probably bad way, about this time is that I didn't prepare as much. Last time, I had it all organised into mostly detailed scene descriptions so that I could follow the progress of the three main characters. I added a few scenes and changed a few others, but I had a template and I went with it and that made it easy to write. I'd pick out whatever scene seemed interesting and like I could write it well that day. This time, I thought I had a detailed plan as I wrote it, like, five months ago, but then realised that it wasn't as detailed a I'd thought and, as I didn't revisit it recently, I'm not actually that sure of everything in it. There were a lot of scenes that I left open, e.g. just that the two main characters are fighting. So it'll be interesting how this goes. Do I need a detailed plan to write effectively? I know this will require more editing (which I haven't finished for Scar, anyway, although I had gotten on an editing kick in the last few days of June and will hopefully be able to jump back on that after July) than if I had it carefully planned, but it will be interesting to see what it becomes and whether I reach the 50,000. There was another idea (that I had the last week of June and was really excited about) that I was considering doing instead of the idea upon which I decided, figuring it slightly more developed. If I run out of story before 50,000, I'm going to become a rebel and finish my word count off by starting this other story. Or maybe by working on a scene from Scar that I don't know how to write. I'm not sure yet, but having a back up plan is reassuring, even though I really don't want to start my other prematurely.
Anyway, I'm so glad that I am on uni holidays. So far, I've played and umpired netball (with a girl from my club who had been awarded her C badge the week prior, which gave me so much confidence and was so much fun because she is so good at it and confident and nice), been visited by my cousin and uncle for two days, played basketball twice, had lunch out with one of my best friends, worked a bit and read, although not as much as I would have liked to. But it's been one and a half weeks out of five, so I still have plenty of time to work and read and write and relax and hang out with my family and everything. Although the realisation that I only have three and a half weeks left (and that, due to work and the size of my reading and watching list and the enormity of Camp NaNoWriMo, I may not actually get to the bored part of the holidays this time despite the fact that I will have had OVER A MONTH off uni).
