Getting Back to Writing #5 // Back from my writing hiatus, 2020 Goals, and Camp NaNo Checkin 🌷

Hello fellow bookworms 🌷  A lot has happened since my last writing update, I turned in my Thesis, there’s now a global pandemic and my life changed quite a bit. Now is the time for a bit of an update on my writing life, 2020 writing goals, why I kind of went on a writing hiatus and how I’m doing with Camp NaNo 📘 I’m still very much planning on making writing a more consistent habit than it has been in the past and with a semester off from university until I start my Master’s again (this was actually the plan before anything happened, putting me in a better position than most people), I now have the time to build up even more dedication to my writing. At least this personal project is not on hold and for that I’m grateful, so let’s get into it 💗

More Getting Back to Writing Posts

• Getting back to writing #1: Making writing a priority again 🖋
• Getting Back to Writing #2: Into the Editing Cave
• Getting back to Writing #3 // Joining #FinishUrBookFall & Writing Goals
• Getting back to Writing #4 // Reaching the Halfway Point

About that Writing Hiatus

I took a bit of a hiatus from writing due to my Thesis ➽ I was hoping to at least do some Revision, but as of late November, it became clear that this wouldn’t work out. Right around that time I got busy with planning my Bachelor Thesis and then doing a study, as well as writing and revising academically. In the end, I decided that I couldn’t fully commit to my creative writing while also working on my Thesis, which a) took up a lot of time and b) sucked in a lot of my energy in general. I never really announced this hiatus here, so … I just never posted a new update 😅

It was weird not writing for over 4 months but it was better for my mental health and well-being in the first place. I also didn’t want to compromise the quality of my revision by doing some half-hearted attempts during those months – I would rather focus as much as possible on this revision and put in all the energy to improve my WIP. I feared that I would get sloppy with it if I pushed myself to keep going under the stress of my thesis. So, even though it scared me a bit to take such a long break, I waited until the end of March to turn to writing again. The Timing was good as Camp NaNo was right around the corner with an opportunity to get into it again 🥰

An accurate representation of my mind in the last few months

2020 Writing Goals

With the beginning of the year being so busy I never shared my 2020 Writing Goals with you, like I initially had planned to do so in January. It’s a bit late now, but I still wanted to list my Top 3 Writing Goals that I definitely hope to achieve in 2020 – after all, I have a bit of free time now to use for getting back into writing and doing my revision.

Revise my WIP Intoxicated (developmental, line & copyedits)  ➽ My top goal for the year is to finish the revision of my current WIP! Currently, I’m over halfway done with the first round of developmental edits and hope to completely finish them by the end of April. Afterwards, I need to do another round of edits as I had to rewrite large chunks of the books. Then it’s finally time to face my writing style and prose, as so far I’ve only improved the big picture stuff like characters, plot and worldbuilding. That might take a while as I need to polish my writing and catch all the grammar and spelling mistakes before I can get a second opinion!

My WIP Intoxicated feat. witches, rivalries, and romance 💖

Participate in Camp NaNo April ➽ I’m already participating in Camp NaNo so we’re halfway done already 🎉 As I sadly couldn’t participate in NaNoWriMo 2019 due to my thesis, I knew that I wanted to at least do Camp NaNo April, as I would be done with my Bachelor Thesis by then. I have no idea if I’ll be able to participate in NaNoWriMo of this year, so the Camp months are a great idea to use the NaNo motivation for myself. I aimed to revise 50K words during April, as sadly the new website doesn’t allow any other method of tracking that used to be exclusive to the Camps (like time, or what I would have prepared: pages) until next year. It wasn’t ideal (as a lot of people do revision during Camp and words aren’t that great for measuring progress), but so far it has worked out! (more on that in a minute)

Work on my new project WIP Spirithunters  ➽ Oh yes, I’m working on another project after finishing my revision, because I think it’s important to not get caught up in one WIP for too long. I’ve already worked on WIP Intoxicated for years with earlier drafts that changed drastically, so before outlining a sequel I’m not sure will ever happen, I want to turn to a new world. I might introduce this new project sometime! For now, the plan is to brainstorm it, as it’s a fresh idea and needs a lot of work when it comes to plot, characters and the world. I can say that it features spirits – but they’re not friendly ghosties 👻

Camp NaNo Checkin

My NaNoWriMo Stats (excluding today as I scheduled the post in advance) 🌸

I’ve entered Act 3 now!!!  ➽ Much excitement, as Act 2 is – logically – so long and it took a lot of revising to fix the large part of the middle. Now I have finally entered Act 3 and the hope to finish my first round of edits is coming closer and closer. That was my main goal for Camp NaNo as this is the most difficult of all the edits. It’s fixing a lot of the major problems with my WIP and the second round will mostly focus on improving what I had to add/rewrite. I hope me finishing the first edits will come up to the 50K words I had pledged as tracking the second edits with words instead of scenes will be a bit more tricky. Nevertheless, I’m proud of my progress 💛

My updated progress board (we have reached Act 3!!)

I struggled to get back into writing, but I found myself slowly loving it again  ➽ The first few days of Camp NaNo were understandably difficult as I hadn’t worked on my revision for 4 months. BUT there was some good in it too, as I gained even more distance from my WIP and went back with a lot of new, fresh ideas and a renewed love for my project. At first, it was hard to get into the revision as I had to get into my story again. However, after a while, I began loving the daily writing and sometimes I even felt like the story was falling into place and beginning to make some sense. It was an amazing, gratifying feeling and eased some of the worries and doubts I had both about the story and myself as a writer. There is still a lot of work to be done, but now I feel confident that I love writing and that no matter what happens, it can be a kind of comfort for me. I noticed it only after a few days, but writing genuinely distracted me from everything going on and gave me an escape, a way to not constantly worry all the time 🌸

An excerpt from my NaNo Journal (excuse my bad handwriting) 😄

Are you participating in Camp NaNo? How is writing going for you? If you’re not a writer, what is your current personal project? 🌷