Camp NaNo Reflection: July 2016

Another Camp NaNo has come and gone! I only mentioned that I was doing it this month in passing, so here's some more detail about how my month went in terms of writing.

I did Casanova again with the goal of 15k, which was my initial goal in April before I bumped it up to 18k. I didn't change my goal this time (mainly because it never crossed my mind). I still reached 21,594 words by July 31st!

My word counts this month was a lot more varied than they were in April. I reached 15k on the 18th and started slacking off after that point lol. I also struggled a lot with finding things to write about, for both Casanova and Aperture, because July was kind of a lull in my summer and I didn't have too much in real life experiences to draw from. (The 3rd is a complete outlier. I'm still not quite sure how I pulled it off.) 

I still managed to write more than 1k for Casanova on four different days this month! The 31st was definitely a surprise. I got an idea and I was able to run with it a lot further than I was expecting. Overall I'm happy with my word counts for July. 

As for the writing itself: I made some more progress on the story and the characters, but I still haven't gotten around to writing the first chapter OTL. I definitely have a better idea of how to write it and how to fit it into the progression of events, but I need to work up enough inspiration to start picking at it. I'm still hoping I can get it done before I go back to school on the 29th. (Holy crap I'm not ready.)

In other writing- and success-related news, I passed my driver's license test yesterday!! I'm a fully licensed adult!!

Long story short, I resisted getting it for very close to a year, but I realized I would be inconveniencing my parents and my friends by continuing to dig my heels in. Also, I wanted to beat some of my friends to the punch. I have a really strange sense of competition. And some really lazy friends. 

One of the (many other) influencing factors that pushed me to finally book the test was actually Toni and Carter, the two main characters of Casanova. I've been writing so many scenes of Toni driving, and almost as many regarding Carter's reliance on others because he refuses to get a license. I finally got tired of doing the same thing as Carter and decided being more like Toni would be better. 

So, I can officially say that my writing has made me suck it up and do some Adulting. 

The next NaNo event is the Big NaNo in November. I haven't decided on what I'll be doing this year; I could continue my trend and try re-drafting Casanova, or I could do something new and try drafting a sci-fi Nutcracker retelling idea I've had for a while. I've still got a couple months to decide. 

If you guys participated in Camp NaNo this past month, I'd love to hear how it went for you!