My Adventures with Camp NaNoWriMo 2012

by Thea van Diepen
White Changeling

Gotta say, winning feels good :)

Last month marked my second time participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as the summer version of that thing where people try to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month.

(Writers in general are slightly bonkers, but even we admit that coming up with this takes a special kind of crazy).

My friend says that it takes about a week until a person’s brain can disengage from their NaNo story and start thinking about normal(ish) things. I agree. My novel basically took over my brain while I was writing it and the unfolding plot was the primary cause of all but one of the emotional upsets I had the whole month.

You may laugh, but it’s entirely true.

Struggling with wordcount was the other cause

What drove me to such insanity this month was the first novel of a fantasy series that I’ve been planning for several months now. I had wanted to wait until I’d planned out all ten (ten!) novels until I started writing the first one, but my enthusiasm had been lagging. Camp NaNo was the only thing I could think of that would give me the kick in the pants I sorely needed.

And what a kick in the pants it was!

I don’t think I’ve had this much fun writing a story yet. From one character making the most of his insignificance by adopting the voice of Alan Rickman instead of making up his own to eery moments of foreshadowing for later events in the series, from unexpectedly emotional conversations to subtle pop culture references, every day of writing was more enjoyable and more fulfilling than I had imagined in my wildest dreams.

Not only that, but I discovered/confirmed some fun quirks about myself, like how I can’t write worth crap if I’m wearing something on my head, my love for finding the perfect theme song for a book, and my tendency during a writing project to listen to the same playlist or album over and over and over and over…

These were all zero on June 1

*sighs happily*

Now, the thing about writing 50,000 words of a novel is that people don’t always finish said novel by the time they reach their goal for the month. Last year, I would have only got half of the book done had I not derailed partway through and had to use about 20,000 words to figure out what the heck just happened and how I was going to deal with it.

This year, though, I finished my words just as I got to the very last scene, which means I was able to finish the first draft of the book only a couple of days ago.

In other words, I have, for the first time in my life, finished the rough draft of a full-length novel.

You know what this means, right?

Oh, yeah. Time to pimp it:

Cover concept art

First Line: Knuckles white with effort, Adren held the ladder invisible.

Summary: To get a cure for a mad unicorn, Adren must steal a sealskin from a lord, but the sealskin isn’t what it seems… and neither is anything else.

Last Line: At least he knew what his were.

Theme Song: Ged A Sheòl Mi Air M’ Aineol (the version sung by Julie Fowlis, who also sung the song used in the last trailer for Brave).

Excerpts:

Selected Topics Researched While Writing:

Dye (hair, fabric and skin)
Mansions (size, what kinds of rooms they have)
Livery (what it looked like and who exactly wore it)
Horses (anatomy, whether they’re ticklish, what they look like while sleeping)
Sealskins (size, weight -thank you to @theliz13 for providing this information!)
The rear naked choke (and various other ways to knock someone out)

If this has piqued your interest and you want to know before anyone else when I start revising Hidden in Sealskin, and also get some awesome out-of-the box thinking that won’t be available anywhere else, sign up to my email list either on the top of the sidebar or through this link. All you have to do is fill in your email and click ‘subscribe’!