Camp NaNo Days 21 to 28: Winner!

Yes! I did it! 20,027 words in a month filled with almost every social engagement and work obligation known to man!
This was not easy going. If I'd optioned for the full 50,000, I never would have made it. 25,000 words may have been possible, but even as it is I had to do some of my writing on my work laptop on the train towards a meeting...
Combined, this must be the wonkiest word count graph I have ever had:

But who cares? I got there in the end. And not totally the end, of course; my personal deadline in my head is always two days ahead of the official deadline.
So, what is next? Hopefully, to continue writing. My story is only about a third of the way through, I'm still liking (and discovering more about) my characters, and the main problem has not even come close to being resolved. Enough work left to do, and as always I'm optimistic about keeping it up, but the reality is I have so far never managed to actually do that. The difference between April and November is that the latter is followed by holiday-filled December, while the former is followed by going-into-summer-relaxation May. So maybe things will be different this time around.
For now, I'm just going to enjoy my achievement!

Camp NaNo Days 11 to 20: quarts and thirds

Wow, this April is going by fast! Just a minute ago we were at day 10, and suddenly we're a third of the way through at day 20. Of those 10 days in between, I spent a total of 7 days not writing. That does not sound like a very productive NaNo, but strangely enough, I am just100 words shy of 15,000, which means I'm three quarters of the way through!
I've been going through in leaps and bounds, writing 1,000+ words on some days and nothing at all on others. This would never work with the 'real' NaNo, and is in fact in direct violation of the 'idea' of NaNo; make time every day to write, but it does work for this Camp NaNo. With only 5,000 words and 10 days to go, I feel pretty confident I am going to make this. Also, because I didn't write every day, and just on those moments I could actually find the time to sit down and hammer out big chunks of chapters, I feel like I should be able to keep up this routine when we get to May. This is far less demanding on my time and mind, giving me the space to actually develop the story and the characters in between. I should have thought of doing this camp thing years ago!

The Blind Assassin

So April wasn't just write, write, write, I also did some reading. Not a lot, mind you, most of the reading of The Blind Assassin took place in March, as this book took a long time to get through. Not because I didn't like it, mind you, but because this is one heavy book. It's 600+ pages, filled with one of the saddest stories I've read in a long time. Margaret Atwood is known for her dystopian novels and this is no exception, but this story takes place in our world. It could actually have happened. Maybe that is what gives it weight over The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx & Crake; this novel deals with places and events that actually were real, so it may well have really happened.
So, what is it about? As the blurb tells us, 10 days after WWII ended, Laura Chase drove herself off a bridge. In the novel, her sister Iris describes the events leading up to Laura's suicide, writing a diary fifty years after this happened, when she is the sole survivor of the events that took place. Interspersed with the 'diary' Iris keeps are chapters filled with other written sources; letters, obituaries, news articles, and most importantly, The Blind Assassin itself, the novel published after Laura's death.
In their youth, for that is how far back Iris goes, they lived a live of luxury; their father owned some big factories and they were the rich family of the village. Their mother died when they are quite young, but otherwise they appear to be the typical upper-class ladies you find in so many novels, educated at home, snubbing their teachers, being a star at social events, etc. This isn't another one of those 'Downton Abbey' novels, however, for they quickly fall down the social ladder when the Depression hits. Their father should close the factories but can bring himself to fire his employees, thus only worsening his own situation. There are rumours of Communists in the ranks and Iris and Laura hide one of these rebellious youths in the attic. To save himself, their father decides to marry Iris off to his main competitor, only to find that the guy didn't keep his end of the bargain. Iris never discloses much about her marriage, but we can read between the lines that it wasn't a happy one.
Then WWII hits, and you can feel the story nearing its climax, with a plot twist that shimmers beneath the lines for at least 100 pages, but you can't really lay a finger on until it hits you. Somehow, all the written sources, all the articles and novel excepts and diary fragments combine to form one great narrative. I reread some of the earlier bits as I neared the end, but this is one of those novels you should reread after you've finished, just to pick up on the hints that must be hidden in the pages.
In short; it is one of those novels that stays with you. A deserved Booker Prize winner, and as such it ticked two of my reading goals for this year; read more Atwood and read more Booker Prize winners. But it also ticks the box of a great story, told with understated feeling, with such imagery that I feel like some of the events actually happened before my eyes, as if they are memories rather than words written down. Now on to happier stories!

Camp NaNo Days 3 to 10: ups and flats

You thought I'd given up by now, right? Writing a novel in April, when work is busy, the weather is turning balmy and you want to be outside as much as possible? Insane! But yet, I'm still doing it.
True, I had some no-writing days in between, but these were planned, as my goal was only 20,000 words. I am currently, on day 10, before I start my writing of the day, at... (drumroll)... 8,388 words! That is almost halfway! And the month isn't even halfway yet!
Stats, because who doesn't love them:

Blurry stats, the bars are my wordcount, the line is the projected wordcount to make a steady pace to 20,000 words.

It goes up a bit shakily, but there you are. Ups and flats, as there are no downs in NaNo (unless your laptop gets burgled and you didn't have a backup, but let's not get into that...).
My average per day is still 838, while I should write 667 to keep up. Now I know there will be a couple of days this week that I won't be able to write, so the goal tonight is to get to 10,000, which is where I should be on day 15. That gives me some room to bide time until the weekend, when writing will commence again in full swing.
Enough with this blog update, I will now get back to writing what I'm actually supposed to. Sorry for the 'mostly numbers' update, I'll get back with some more content when I feel like I can actually waste the time to meta-write!

ETA: I finished at 10,164 words tonight. It took a while, but I got there!

Camp NaNo Days 1 & 2: pretty number updates

Camp NaNoWriMo 2018 has started! Wooo!
It started a day late for me, but I made up for that by reaching 2,626 words at 15:15 today. Look at those pretty pretty numbers. I kept my word count at 1,337 (nerd humour) for quite a while after my writing spree this morning, but just now I went back to the story and almost doubled that amount. My NaNo stats page tells me that if I keep going at this pace (as if) I will finish on the 16th of April. And if not, I only have to write 600 words per day to finish on time. Doesn't that sound like something I could actually do?
Now, looking at quality rather than quantity, I am actually pretty happy with what I wrote. I did the prologue early this morning, made a small start on the first chapter, and finished the first chapter just now. Not sure this will be the entirety of the chapter, as it is a bit short and a bit too much 'to the point'; it seems to be in quite a hurry to get the rest of the story started. But I can always go back and edit that later. Now for the second chapter, which is one of the big expositional ones. I really like writing those, as they combine the knowledge I already have of these characters with the new surprising bits I will discover along the way, but they do take a lot of attention to write, and it is usually in these that the little errors creep in which cause inconsistencies later on. But 20,000 words keeps things manageable, so I may even correct those as I write more. When I write more. If I write more.
Onwards!