Goals and Other Thoughts | Camp NaNoWriMo | April 2016

Ah, April. The time of the year when, in Michigan, the temperature can fluctuate between relatively-Spring-like temperatures and an annoyingly cold reminder of winter. April is also the month of NaNoWriMo's (National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as November) Spring Camp session and it snuck up on me like a cat stalking its prey. I was going to be prepared, I told myself. I had a schedule, a plan. I would have an outline finished, I would have locations and minor character details and I would be ready. That's not what happened.

Overall Word Goal
I wanted to start out with a relatively small goal: 15,000 words. Since I didn't get as much preparation done as I would have liked to, I'm going into the drafting process feeling as if I still have a long way to go. Of course, that is true with probably every writing project and, in all honesty, I'm not expecting to enter NaNoWriMo with even a handful of this project left intact. The name of the game right now is: don't overdo it. Ease into this project and let it grow and change to whatever it wants to be.

Overall Progress Goal
I don't want to say that I want to get to a certain chapter or a certain point in the story. I just want to be able to get even deeper into these characters and their actions and thoughts during this month. Since I started planning this story (way back in January), it has already started to take on an entirely new direction - not with overall plot or execution, necessarily, but more with little things that all need to be accurate in order for the story to work. If I had to say where I want to be when April comes to an end, I guess I would say that I want to have at least three chapters written. This would provide an introduction to the two main characters and would start to lay out their desires and interests and overall goals for the book.

Other Thoughts

• Points of View? Alternating Narrators? Figuring out which direction to take in narration and point of view is probably the thing that I spent way too much time on. I started out wanting to write from the perspective of Jude, one of my main characters whom I created with vigor and excitement. Now, though, she is the one thing that is giving me a headache. She doesn't feel real enough, doesn't have enough umph. The other main character, Louisa, feels a lot more alive to me right now, so I am going to start out writing from her perspective, albeit third person (I've never been a big fan of writing fiction in the first person). We will see where that takes me.
• Too Trope-y? The idea of this story came to me as a combination of some of my favorite fan fiction tropes. Kind of weird, right? In writing, I'm not going to have those tropes be so apparent - I don't think. I am always worried about making things too formulaic, making things too convenient. I think that is something that I struggle with the most out of the writing process; I don't want to make the story something that has been seen before. While my plot, as of now, still contains my two favorite fan fiction hooks (which I won't be disclosing right now), I hope to eliminate any other tropes that may get me into trouble re: instalove or something similar.
• Contemporary State of Mind Unlike last year's NaNoWriMo, I am working on a contemporary now. While I think my fantasy has potential, I just don't even want to look at it at this point. Maybe I will revisit it sometime, but this contemporary idea really has me hooked to it, and I can't think about anything else. The differences between fantasy and contemporary are obvious, but I didn't expect a lot of the more intricate things to give me pause in the planning process. For example, my characters live in and visit real cities and locations but, at the same time, there are some smaller places that will be entirely fictional (coffee shops, gas stations, stuff like that). Finding a balance between keeping the story grounded in reality and still making it work for my characters and plot will be key.

Is anyone else participating in Camp NaNoWriMo? What kind of stories are you planning on writing? What are your word count goals? Let me know!