I’ve been on a bit of an unplanned hiatus. But the fourth of July was lots of fun, the family and guests have left, and it’s time to get back to work. Since I’ve been having trouble focusing on novel revision, I decided to sign up for Camp NaNo this month for some extra motivation.
It’s not too late to set a Camp goal for yourself, and participation is free!
Camp is similar to NaNoWriMo except you set your own word count goal. Word count goals aren’t exactly conducive to revision, so it’s up to the writer to decide how to set up the word count to be equivalent to time spent revising, and how to keep the goal motivational.
I found other writers that are revising during camp and joined a group to motivate each other, and talk about how things are going.
I have set up my manuscript in Scrivener, so I decided that every hour spent working in Scrivener is equivalent to 500 words. And set a goal for the month of 60,000 words. That would be four hours of revision every day of the month. However, I’m also keeping up a daily writing streak in 4theWords. So how can I make it also work for revision?
For a while now, I’ve been using 4theWords for my morning pages, or “daily freewrites” as I call them. It’s surprising to me how motivational just typing in my random thoughts and daily goals can be. But I also want to use the program for my revision. I’ve set up lots of exercises for character interviews, and exploring character arcs, and for thinking through the big picture questions for the re-write. When I’m ready, I think I’ll start a new project in 4theWords and write a complete second draft from scratch. I can then add my word count from the exercises and re-write to my daily word count bringing the time of revision in Scrivener down to a more reasonable two to three hours.
There are also forums in 4theWords where people trying to revise can discuss how it’s going. So through both programs there’s plenty of support and community if I need a break, need extra motivation, or just need to socialize a bit.
Other than the two days I took off for the Fourth of July, Camp has done what I hoped it would do. It has motivated me to look at my manuscript every day and put the work in to see what’s really there, and what needs to change. I know I set myself a challenging goal—and due to the holiday, I’m already behind—but there’s so much work I want to get done. And I think I can increase my word count a little each day so I’ll catch up.
It’s not too late to set a Camp goal for yourself, and participation is free! You may want to set one page of revision as one word, or one hour of revision as one word. There’s no minimum or maximum. I set my goal at 60,000 words because that’s half of my manuscript’s current word count. You can create any goal that will motivate you.
This Month’s Posts
This month I’ll be switching things up a bit. I’ll be talking about Camp NaNo and revision; reviews of, or just commentary on, the books I’m enjoying for Summer Reading Bingo; and fun things that come up in my Writing Life. I’m thinking fun, short posts with whatever insights come my way.
I’m hoping that once I’m really into this revision, I’ll want to get back to Reading Novels Like a Novelist posts. I have a bunch lined up (I’ve been reading a lot), but I wasn’t doing them justice because I wasn’t applying what I was learning from my reading to my manuscript. We’ll see if that changes over the next couple weeks.
Experience Writing 