It's #CampNaNoWriMo Time Again! #amwriting #amediting #amrevising

Yes, it's that time of year again when the Camp cabins open for NaNoWriMo. As often happens, I said I wasn't going to do it. I said I was leaving writing to find a real job. But here I am, setting up camp, while my job hunting has been pretty barren and discouraging. I've got several works hanging over my head and I feel the desperate urge to finish something and get it off my chest, out of my head, and maybe...just maybe...out earning some dosh (ha ha!).

Reunion's cover reveal was over a year ago!

The great thing about Camp NaNoWriMo compared to the normal November version is that you can set your word count, and even what kind of project you want to work on (revision is now an option when you go to set up your project). While NaNo for me is usually a 'get an idea out of my head and into a Word doc', the Camp ones are quite often edits. Last year I used the April Camp to revise and re-edit Gethyon for re-release after the rights reverted to me last June (my last work still tied to a publisher).

This year, I decided I need the accountability of NaNo to complete the edits I've already paid for on my two SFR novellas - Revived, my RWA LERA finalist and a follow on to Terms & Conditions Apply, and Reunion at Kasha-Asor, a novella set directly after Keir (Book One of the Redemption series). Both have been languishing on my hard drive for over a year now, when they could, with the necessary work, be out earning their keep. I've picked at them and Keir's Shadow over the past few months but not made that much progress. Time for me to just sit down and get them done!

Of course, there are complications with the April Camp NaNoWriMo. My monsters will be on their Spring Break for the first two weeks (oops) and usually I commit my time to them during school holidays. But these so close to finished novellas are driving me nuts. I figure an hour or two a day is a fair compromise - my older two are self sufficient and often arrange their own social diarys these days, while youngest generally only requires a cooked dinner since he can even make his own sandwiches now. And short of someone standing over me with a cattleprod (any volunteers? I'm serious!) I think Camp might be just the kick up the pants I need to do these projects. Wish me luck...

Status Update
Last week I went back into the cobwebby depths of my hard drive in search of an old story. I had quite a shock on seeing I hadn't opened the doc for exactly two years (to the day!). Wow. I had some beta reader notes to look through and make changes, but overall it didn't read too badly. It even made me smile, then a bit teary at the end (let's hope it works on readers). Would you believe I'm about to make a submission to a publisher? I haven't done this in a while, but I happened to see a sub call that was a perfect fit for this story - a f/f paranormal short I wrote for a sub call in 2015 but that later got cancelled due to too few entries. Since I wasn't doing anything with the piece, I figured I might as well give this a shot.
While I was there, I found myself looking at some other pieces, including a completed SF short written for another anthology that I pulled out of. I'd like to release it, but at the moment I think I'd better finish off the stories I've already paid for edits on rather than putting yet more stuff into edits. Especially as this one is going to require a rather specialized cover...
Sunday was Mothers' Day here in the UK, and we celebrated by hubs doing his best to feed me into submission, and another trip to the beach and rather tempestuous seas. Enjoy!

Too close!