It’s been a long time. Certainly more time than I thought I’d spend away. But sometimes that’s the nature of the beast.
As of last night, slightly after midnight (so, I guess, technically today), the April novel, a Historical Fiction piece set in the summer of 1982, was finally complete (though, I did notice a couple of errors on the first page this morning, so I did a little tweaking already). I didn’t intend to let it stretch so far into May, but it’s what happened. For several reasons.
Firstly, after not getting anywhere close to completing my March novel (Mystery), I kept writing every day, but it was only a little at a time. I honestly contemplated just throwing out this whole project entirely. But I kept at it, slowly but surely.
After spending a day toward the late middle of April contemplating if I really should throw in the towel, I started thinking about the ideas I had for other months, and how I was still excited to write them. I also thought about what I had in store for April, and the creative juices started flowing. And I started gaining a great deal of ground to make it by the end of the month.
The problem was, as a second reason why it took so long, life got in the way. The last weekend of April saw lots of activities that needed doing: the school carnival, mowing the grass for the first time this year, other stuff that escapes me at this moment, and just life in general. I was making a great deal of progress in the week leading up to it, even getting as much as 7K in one day, but it wasn’t enough.
I have to admit, I was partly hobbled by the fact that I was consistently writing 3/4/5K a day for a lot of the last two weeks (because that’s basically when almost all of the novel was written), and that still wasn’t good enough. I was falling farther and farther behind. But I also wasn’t willing to (totally) shirk my responsibilities to my family, nor did I want to sacrifice (too much) sleep to gain ground. I was doing my best to self-care, but that often also led to reduced productivity even when I would write.
And then when I took my foot off the gas at the end of April (the third main reason it took so long), and I let myself have another day or two, that spread into the 8th, when I finally managed to cross the line. I had gone from a beginning that I rewrote at least 3 times before I really got going, and now sit at a completed draft.
The beginning, by the way? I’m so glad I changed it. It was wise to switch the movie the 3 guys see at the opening of the plot from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Poltergeist for two main reasons: the former was released at the end of the summer, which would have led into school being part of the plot, while the former was released at the beginning, meaning the plot could be free of the constraints of classes and homework, and the rigidity that school would have imposed on other aspects of the plot. But the other good reason was, it kept the guys thinking more about horror and sci-fi (I had them go to Blade Runner and The Thing, as well) instead of being excited about getting to see boobs on the screen. To me, as a guy, even though I know what it was like to be 15 and be horned up for stuff like that, it didn’t make the characters seem as sympathetic when it came to their eventual pursuit of their crushes.
I also threw the crushes in earlier, and got a bully in there right away, too. The stakes were raised almost immediately by altering my ideas just enough. Maybe if I had a better outline for all of this, I wouldn’t have needed to switch things up on the fly so much, but if you’ve read this blog enough, you know that’s my process, even if I do have things planned out. (Like the Romance novel, where I planned to have the two guys realize they had feelings for each other, only for the plot to refuse, so I didn’t fight it, and lived to include other queer characters in novels, at least 4 of them, with probably more as I plan and write.) I follow where inspiration leads, and I’m rarely disappointed. Whether my readers are, that’s another story.
I should point out that the whole “de-camping” part of the title was my admission that I didn’t participate in the normal Camp NaNoWriMo activities in April. Why not, even if I was writing anyway? Because I didn’t feel like reporting to an outside source when I knew I was so far behind, and wouldn’t probably write the daily par each day (which for most of the month, I didn’t). As silly as the badges/rewards are, there was a part of me that couldn’t stand not earning them. I may sign up for July, but that’s to be seen.
Anyway, as of now, I stand at just over 4 months into the year, with 3 completed novels, the start of a 4th, and later today, working on the start of a 5th. I have a field trip with my son tomorrow, but the hope is that I will get caught up to where I should be for May (Mech Anime) by the end of next week. I also still plan to write the March novel, but I’m giving myself until the end of June for that. If I can get myself back on track, things should be a lot easier then. It’ll be Choose Your Own Adventure, with a heist plot. Because I can do so many crazy things, and the individual plots can be a lot shorter, I figure that’s the perfect time to cram a second novel in, and still make progress on both. Especially since I’m a good 15K behind on the May novel by the end of the day. Okay, not quite. May has 31 days instead of 30, so the math isn’t quite that exact.
Months that end on a Sunday (like April) are not my friend lately. It’s a good thing December 31st is a Sunday, so I get to end the year on that high! (Rolls eyes.)