Author Journey: August 6, 2021 - Camp Nano Results

 Working on Surge is still coming along, though my motivation is still pretty low. That's such a discouraging thing for me. I love my story. There are times I laugh and times I hold my breath, even though I know what's coming. This tells me, I have at least a good foundation, even if it's not publish-ready yet. I miss my online writing communities and have zero time to get more involved in the groups at this point. The word for this current season of my life is, quite literally, 'overwhelm'. Still, there is good news.

The Good News - Camp Nano 2021 Win!

I won this round of Camp Nano and edited through 27 chapters of Surge, as well as the last few chapters of The Tale of Outh'n Durr. Here's what the final progress graph looks like.

There were nine days I didn't edit at all. Even with the best of intentions, there are just days when I'm too exhausted or too overwhelmed and I know the work I put in will be mediocre at best. I can't stand the thought of putting in work I'm just going to have to erase completely. 

On one of the days I didn't have a word count, I actually did edit a few lines, but it only totaled a few hundred words. I just decided to put it in with the next day's count. It feels pretty good to have another win I'm happy with under my belt, though.

 

All in all, though, I consider this a great success and a good start on the second content edit of the second novel in my series. For a little while, though, I'll have to take a break. 

What's Next?

The covers of Ripples and The Tale of Outh'n Durr have to be completed. When I created the original cover for The Tale of Outh'n Durr, I hadn't really thought past making it available online only, or as a free pdf download. The cover didn't seem to be so important all those months ago. 

Now, though, I realize it's long enough to be its own little book. With that in mind, the current cover is missing a whole lot of elements and there's no room to just add them in. I'll have to recreate it from scratch. Not only that, I'll have to do so with the other short stories I'm working on in mind, since they'll eventually all be gathered into 'The Tales of Y'Dahnndrya Vol. 1'. I hope I'll eventually have enough of these short stories to create a few volumes of Y'Dahnndrya tales, but that remains to be seen. 

Also in the works, I'm preparing to write the fifth book in the Children of Y'Dahnndrya series for the official NaNoWriMo event starting November 1st. I've done some surface planning. A few characters are clattering around in my mind and I have the bones of a couple of scenes started, too. Here's hoping the words will flow and the planning will be solid. 

Author Life Update

With all the upheaval created by the current rounds of sickness, overload of information (both accurate and not), and basic distrust of everything I thought I could count on, I've decided to take up the study of herbs -- how to use them and whole organic food we grow ourselves to improve our health and well-being and boost our immune systems. I've always been interested in this topic. It just seems like current events have given me the push I needed to study it more seriously. 

Still, that means less time for writing, especially with school coming up. We start next week and I'm looking forward to it. The beginning of the school year refreshes me, for some odd reason. Perhaps this refreshing will carry over into the other areas of life and my writing will get a bit of a boost, too.  

 

Rumors of mandated masks and possible lock-downs make it really hard to stay positive, especially when I know that if it's your time to go, you're going whether you sequestered yourself from society and wore a mask or not. I don't want to let fear rule my actions or cloud my judgment, either. So many things about this whole situation don't make any logical sense. (Also, this section is not an opening to spew vitriol. If the comments get nasty, I'm deleting them and turning off comments for this post. Just want to get that warning out in advance.) 

Well, I better get back to work. I have a lot to do. I hope you're all staying busy and are able to work joyfully. Don't let fear get you down or hold you back. I'm not going to. 

Until next time...