I set a modest goal of 20,000 words in July, and I’m pleased that I made it. I started a novel, which was a lot of fun to noodle around with. I had the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge take up one weekend, parenting take up who knows how long, and a few migraine days, but I did manage to produce 20,000 words, which is the most I’ve done in a long time. I like Camp NaNoWriMo because you don’t have to hit an arbitrary goal to “win.” It’s fun to have a cabin of people participating to chat with, and watching the progress bar fill up is satisfying. I don’t think NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in November) is for me. I don’t really enjoy working on one and only one project for that amount of time (I also started a short story during July), and the goal is unrealistic for my current life.

I got much better at just writing without editing as I went. This is a constant struggle. Just producing words as a goal is fantastic for me. I started writing without an outline, just an idea, and I ended up writing scenes I never would have come up with otherwise. I’m now probably ready to outline the novel, having figured out from the characters what they’re going to do. So it was a productive exercise even if it didn’t produce polished writing. Anyway, it was fun, and I’ll do it again.