Monday, May 12, 2014

NaPoWriMo Went Great, Camp NaNo & OSAI So-So

The grand adventure of April is over. And we have some things to catch up on.

Let's be rebels and start with the good news. :P I won NaPoWriMo! Choir trips and the like kept me from posting some of my poems on time, but I did manage to write one every, single day. With as often as I've fallen short on my writing goals lately, this makes me really happy.

This NaPoWriMo differed from previous years'. Ideas were hard to come by and, for about the first week, so were the words. The latter became less of a problem when I abandoned the bitty notebook I employed last year in favor of the computer. I'm a mood writer when it comes to the utensils I use and I was not feeling pencil and paper.

On top of that, most of my poems were written at night when I just wanted to crawl into bed. Therefore, some of my ideas weren't as expanded or explored as they should have been. However, I like what I did write. Plus, I can always rewrite those poems later.

Camp NaNoWriMo wasn't quite as much of a success. I wrote 6,807 words toward my goal of 18,000, meaning I didn't finish the draft like I wanted. :/ However, I did pass 50k on OBJECTION! I feel like that's an achievement all in itself. I've finally reached OBJECTION's first Camp NaNoWriMo goal. It took me almost two years, but I did it. And that's something.

Of course, this sort of puts a kink in my plans and I'm going to have to rethink some things. The next Camp NaNoWriMo session is in July and I originally intended to finish last November's NaNoWriMo project during that time. Now, I might aim to finish OBJECTION instead and work something else out for my untitled lucky genes story. I'll let you know as soon as I've decided.

I also heard back from the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute last month. It wasn't entirely bad news. I'm an alternate. This means I only get to go if someone else can't or doesn't want to. They can contact me up to June 13th. My hopes aren't high, but at least I didn't completely fail. My writing was good. There were just a few too many people whose was better.

Aaaand, to end on a positive note, I am caught up on reading blog posts! I've been behind for so long, it feels incredible to have that weight lifted off my shoulders. This means I can follow new blogs again and start looking for other writer bloggers close to my age.

Overall, April turned out good. I hope you enjoyed my poems along with my general-writing-related posts. (I'll be posting more of the latter soon. See sidebar for details.)

How was your April?

5 comments:

  1. It stuns me that you are an alternate. What a picky group of writers that Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute must be.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words, Michael. :) I always appreciate your support. Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Poems are exhausting. I nitpick and rake myself over the emotional coals. Kudos to you for writing one a day every month!!! Also, welcome back to more blogging! That is kind of a letdown about the Arts institute, but at least you're an alternate. You have a while until June 13th, after all. Who knows?

    I'm glad to hear you finished your NaNo goals. :) I ended up finishing my NaNo goal, but not finishing the novel I was working on. I am planning to Camp in July but not sure if I should continue writing what I have or start on the Shiny New Idea Story.

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    1. I'm doing Camp in July as well, but I think I'm going to finish what I started and save my shiny new idea for November. :)

      Thanks for the encouragement. I really appreciate you stopping by to read my posts and that you take the time to comment.

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    2. No problem. :) Blogging in college is...weird. And difficult. So I appreciate seeing posts by other people who do it.

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