My Adventures with Camp NaNoWriMo 2012

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.

Coming Soon: "Dreaming of Her and Other Stories"

By the end of this summer, I plan to release my first-ever anthology called Dreaming of Her and Other Stories. If you've been reading this blog for a while, and you remember my announcement about the anthology called Expected Aberrations, well, this is that. Just all grown up and way cooler. :)

Everything has been written; all I have to do is revise, make a cover, put everything together and put it up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (and possibly other places that I haven't looked into quite yet).

Concept art for the cover

Since every good 'coming soon' announcement includes some hype, here's some hype:

Announcing: Apreggios for Writers

Sometime around last Christmas I discovered a really fantastic blog by this badass named Justine Musk. Perhaps you've heard of her.

I absolutely loved what she had to say in her posts and more or less devoured everything I could in three hours (and I read fast, so that was about 90% of her posts). While in the midst of this veritable feast for my mind and imagination, I came across one of her posts on deliberate practise, which linked to a post on Study Hacks on the same subject, and I was like: "Hey! This deliberate practise thing sounds exactly like what I've been needing to give me a boost in my writing skills" -not that I think that I'm a terrible writer or anything, I just love it when I find a practical way to get even better at something that I adore doing.

I got to thinking about this idea, and it really excited me. So, I started a little blog where I'd introduce and exercise, and then I'd do it on a regular basis until I've learned what I can from that exercise for that time, at which point I'd start a new exercise. Since it was really just for me, I didn't tell anyone on the internet about it, and only told some of my friends and family, people who might be interested in writing-related activities.