An Option Failure Is Not.
Camp Nano had actually been chugging along reasonably well through the middle of the month. Halfway through June, I managed to stay on track and broke the 25k barrier only a day or so late. And I did hit 50k... for the year.
The irony is that, well, the day I broke the halfway mark? I received an email from my Riptide editor. Yep. I am wading through edits, my focus on a completely different project. And switching gears between them doesn't happen easily enough for me to try finishing out the month goal of 50k. Especially not when all my creative energy is going into polishing. It takes a lot of elbow grease. Can I count the 2k+ that I've added in the edits?
So! August Camp Nano it is, then! I'll take the year-milestone of 50k as a technical victory, putting me at the halfway point for that. I set an annual goal of 100k for this year for a couple reasons -- the greatest being a matter of quality over quantity, but editing processes contributed heavily as well.
I knew coming into this year that I'd have one official pub to edit, and the intended completion of a very large and substantial rewrite on another project would require at least two thorough editing passes as well. That completion is my major goal this year, word count be damned, to be honest. Which is why I engaged in Camp Nano this month, will do so again in August, and have every intention of participating in NanoWrimo as well.
Forcing the creative focus is crucial for me. I have very close blood relations who have diagnoses of ADD. Some are medicated. Some aren't. I share a lot of the symptoms, have known it for years. Coffee helps. So do externalized deadlines and goals (like Nano). The rest of the time? I manage it by understanding my limitations and accepting that I work slowly as a result. I don't beat myself up about it.
(Okay, not too often, anyway.)
I may have left camp early and hiked off into the wilderness on my own, but it's hardly been a failure. I have 25k on a project that I didn't have before, and it helped push me part of the way over a plot obstacle I had.
I'm about a third of the way through the edits, roughly. I'm being horribly thorough. Which is the way I prefer to do it. Rhi, the Editing Masochist.
The irony is that, well, the day I broke the halfway mark? I received an email from my Riptide editor. Yep. I am wading through edits, my focus on a completely different project. And switching gears between them doesn't happen easily enough for me to try finishing out the month goal of 50k. Especially not when all my creative energy is going into polishing. It takes a lot of elbow grease. Can I count the 2k+ that I've added in the edits?
So! August Camp Nano it is, then! I'll take the year-milestone of 50k as a technical victory, putting me at the halfway point for that. I set an annual goal of 100k for this year for a couple reasons -- the greatest being a matter of quality over quantity, but editing processes contributed heavily as well.
I knew coming into this year that I'd have one official pub to edit, and the intended completion of a very large and substantial rewrite on another project would require at least two thorough editing passes as well. That completion is my major goal this year, word count be damned, to be honest. Which is why I engaged in Camp Nano this month, will do so again in August, and have every intention of participating in NanoWrimo as well.
Forcing the creative focus is crucial for me. I have very close blood relations who have diagnoses of ADD. Some are medicated. Some aren't. I share a lot of the symptoms, have known it for years. Coffee helps. So do externalized deadlines and goals (like Nano). The rest of the time? I manage it by understanding my limitations and accepting that I work slowly as a result. I don't beat myself up about it.
(Okay, not too often, anyway.)
I may have left camp early and hiked off into the wilderness on my own, but it's hardly been a failure. I have 25k on a project that I didn't have before, and it helped push me part of the way over a plot obstacle I had.
I'm about a third of the way through the edits, roughly. I'm being horribly thorough. Which is the way I prefer to do it. Rhi, the Editing Masochist.
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