ALL OF US HARBOR SECRET HOPES THAT A MAGNIFICENT NOVEL WILL TUMBLE OUT OF THE SKY AND APPEAR ON OUR SCREENS, BUT ALMOST UNIVERSALLY, WRITING IS HARD, SLOW AND TOTALLY UNGLAMOROUS.
SO WHY FINISH WHAT YOU'VE STARTED? BECAUSE WHEN YOU ARE DONE, YOU WILL BE GRATEFUL FOR THE EXPERIENCE. ALSO, YOU WILL HAVE LEARNED A LOT ABOUT WRITING AND HUMANNESS AND THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF TILTING AT WINDMILLS.
WHETHER YOU'RE READING OR WRITING, THERE IS NOTHING MAGICAL ABOUT HOW YOU GET FROM THE MIDDLE OF A BOOK TO THE END OF ONE. AS ROBERT FROST PUT IT, "THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH."
SO GO SPIT IN THE FACE OF OUR INEVITABLE OBSOLESCENCE AND FINISH YOUR @#$NG NOVEL."
(John Green)
Well, the July 2013 Camp NaNo is just about over.
Did I achieve my goal of 25,000 words? YES!
Is the novel finished? NO!
Will I finish it? YES!
When? UM...
I'll have to get back to you on that. I need to set better goals for this novel and for my writing in general. NaNo and Camp NaNo really help keep me focused and on track. I think I need to do something similar for myself for non-NaNo months.
Did you go to Camp this summer, too? Did you achieve your word count or editing goals? How are your summer projects coming along?
Let's applaud each other and keep cheering each other on! Let's keep striving and growing and challenging ourselves! And then let's reward ourselves with s'mores and cheese and books and marathons of favorite TV shows and....
Let's applaud each other and keep cheering each other on! Let's keep striving and growing and challenging ourselves! And then let's reward ourselves with s'mores and cheese and books and marathons of favorite TV shows and....
That's awesome! Congratulations—and good luck with finishing your novel. ☺
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dana! I'm going to need all the luck I can get. :)
DeleteYes, you will finish it!
ReplyDeleteIt takes NaNo to keep me motivated as well.
Now who's up for a Firefly marathon?
I hope so!
DeleteYou sound like the guys on The Big Bang Theory. :)
Nice job! Way to get through your 25K. Whew! That's a chunk!
ReplyDeleteYeah, no camps for me. I discovered I don't do well with the pressure. Setting a daily goal? Now that works. (And I don't freak out about deadlines.)
I like the idea of a daily goal. I'm finding it depends on the project - sometimes a word count goal works, other times a page count goal, or more of a project goal, like writing Chapter Six or a certain scene.
DeleteCongratulations, Madeline. You're on your way!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Donna! :)
DeleteCongrats on the Nano win.
ReplyDeleteMy goal is to take the month of August and finish what I started at Camp. I will write to a word count goal during Nano but what I prefer to do is just to plunk my butt at my desk at 5:00 am and write for at least an hour.
Congrats to you, too! :) A time goal might work well for me at this point. Hmm...
DeleteYay! Go Madeline! And I love that John Green quote.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I love the quote, too. :)
DeleteI love that quote--not surprising, though. I love John Green, too. :-)
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, I'm in revisions. I. Will. Get. This. Novel. Done.
(I may never get it published, but I'm way past that. :-)
I hear you! Getting the novel done is the first step. I'm trying not to look beyond that at this point. :)
DeleteCongrats on achieving your goal! That's worth celebrating!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the inspiration and motivation!
Thanks, Leigh! And you're welcome. :)
Deleteso so true! and way to go with your goal! you will finish in no time!
ReplyDeleteI don't know about "no time" but I will definitely finish it. :)
DeleteYay for achieving your goal!! That is fantastic. :)
ReplyDeleteI love the last sentence of this quote LOL. And "being grateful for the experience" is so true and something I always need to be reminded of.
I totally agree about the last line and about "being grateful for the experience." Definitely something I'm going to keep in mind, too.
DeleteHi again. I just wanted to say that I agree with your comment on my post today—I, too, think the animation of Kay's spoken word performance is distracting (even though it's well-done). Spoken word poetry is, after all, meant to be performed. I updated my post to include a video of her performance of "Hands." I'm curious to learn which video others prefer. ☺
ReplyDeleteI'm going to check out the second video... :)
DeleteWell done on the word count! Good luck for the rest of the novel :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm going to need it. :)
Delete