PaWriCo Bookish Bootcamp July 11-17 Check-In

Hey all, Sam here.

Four weeks down, two weeks to go. I think this is the longest I’ve been able to stick with a writing challenge in quite a while, even if I feel like I could be doing a bit better.

Well, with another week completed, I guess it’s time to look back on my goals for the Pathfinder Writers Collective Bookish Bootcamp and see how I’m spending my week as I work towards building up better habits for myself.

Let’s get started.

July 11

I did a little bit of writing craft book reading before bed tonight, but since it was before bed I didn’t get to read a lot. Still though, I think this will be a good book to soak in considering the reality around us, so I’m excited to read the rest. It’s not overly long either, so I definitely feel like I can finish it easily if I sit down and having a good reading session.

July 12

It wasn’t much, but there was a little bit of writing craft reading today, and I did get to jot a couple ideas down in my notebook. Technically this would count as progress towards my writing goal, but I’m hoping I have a couple days of better progress too.

July 13

It was a pretty busy day at work, so I didn’t really get much time for reading or writing or anything. My brain is always daydreaming, but I determined for this challenge that the daydreaming doesn’t count as writing progress because I’m not writing it all down somewhere where I can’t simply forget it.

July 14

Work today wasn’t busy in the usual way where there’s lots of things to do on a time crunch and no time to take a break, but it was hectic and filled with lots of prep work to get things sorted for the rest of the week for co-workers and other departments and such. It left very little time for breaks, and certainly no time for reading or writing.

July 15

A vast majority of our work weeks lately seem to be very busy and very draining. It continues to lead to us needing a big lazy day of doing nothing to start our weekend, just so we can recover. I will say that I had a nice conversation with David where I bounced ideas off of him for the D&D novel. I do this because it is a fictionalized version of how we really met and started dating in real life, so I want his input on things to make the D&D campaign and the character based on him to feel like a nice representation of him. So that’s one day of working on my story.

July 16

I typed up some of my handwritten notes for D&D novel today, in the time where I was waiting for D&D to start (especially since my anxiety was ramping up thinking about the combat that was to come when the session started). So I got to fully dive into thinking about a lot of characters and stories and stakes, and it is why I really enjoy this form of storytelling and try to capture it in my writing. Anyway, it counts as one day of story work.

July 17

One of my goals for this Bookish Bootcamp is to get out of my house and do something: go for a walk, visit a park, get away for a bit. But with how everything went this week, we were left doing errands like grocery shopping today, and it had to be done before our other D&D group had their session. So it wasn’t as big of an explore and touch grass excursion as usual. We stopped at Sonic and got yummy drinks and then enjoyed them while looking at the Mississippi River…so it was a brief outing at the end of a grocery trip, but it still counts. I’ll try to do something more worthy of my Explore goal next week.

Week Four Overview

Write: I had two proper days of making writing progress, but I did have one day where I jotted down some ideas in my notebook, so technically I did work on my D&D novel three times this week. I think about this story a lot. My struggle has been in actually getting words on the page, so I’m hoping to get some actual word count progress in the final two weeks of this bootcamp.

Explore: It was a short get out of the house relaxation moment, but it counts, so yay.

Learn: I read a few chapters in a writing craft book, which still puts me in a perfect position to meet my goal of reading 2-3 craft books over the six weeks of this better habits challenge, so I’m feeling pretty decent about my overall progress.

All right, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.