Camp NaNoWriMo July 2021 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Thirty One

Words written today: 2,521
Total stories written: 5
Total SF-AZ chapters written: 1
Total words written: 30,461

It’s done! I finished Camp NaNoWriMo strong, achieving my goal of 30,000 words. Didn’t finish the last story, but it’s going quite strong, and probably past the halfway point. I’ll probably finish the rough draft next month and send it to my writing group.

Good stuff! I’ve definitely broken out of whatever creative block was holding me back before, and hopefully can use this momentum to press forward and finish The Stars of Redemption next month. When I’m not doing that, I’ll be revising and polishing these stories, and probably sending them out on submission. No idea if any of the traditional markets will pick them up, but either way, I’ll be putting them out myself before too long. After all, that was my secondary goal: to produce enough short stories to be able to self-publish something new every month for the forseeable future.

Thanks for reading!

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Thirty

Words written: 2,483
Total stories written: 5
Total SF-AZ chapters written: 1
Total words written: 27,940
Total words remaining: 2,060
Total words behind: 1,100

Good day of writing today! I was going to work on Science Fiction from A to Z, second edition, but decided instead to start a new Zedekiah Wight story. This is the one I’ve been meaning to write since the beginning of nanowrimo, the one that ties it all together with “When She Awakes” and resolves that cliffhanger. I’d earlier started a story that I thought would tie it all together, but it was actually a different character’s story, so while looking over all that this morning I realized “no, this one has to be about Rachel.” And then the opening scene came to me, and I started writing it down.

Not sure if I’ll finish this story by the end of tomorrow (working title “To Enter Into That Rest”), but if not, I definitely plan to finish it sooner rather than later. And there’s a chance that I can pull it off tomorrow. A lot of it depends on how long the story runs, and I honestly don’t know how that will turn out. It could be just a quick 5k word short story. Or it might turn into a novelette.

At this point, I’m letting the characters run with it and following them along. Great feeling. Been a while since I had this much fun writing. I hope I can hold onto that and inject it into my WIP when I go back to it next week. Part of it really is just sitting down and putting words onto paper. I need to write at least 1,500 words per day to really start hitting that creative sweet spot.

Anyway, it’s late, and I told my wife we could go to bed about an hour ago. I don’t think she’ll be too mad, since she hasn’t come to get me, but I’d better go. Calling it a night.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty Nine

Words written: 1,463
Total stories written: 5
Total SF-AZ chapters written: 1
Total words written: 25,457
Total words remaining: 4,543
Total words behind: 2,615

Coming in on the home stretch! For my nanowrimo word count, I’ve decided to include some of the chapters I want to write for the second edition of Science Fiction from A to Z. Yesterday I wrote the first one, but I think I’m going to rewrite it because I’m not sure it sets the right tone. We’ll see how it turns out. This is going to be an ongoing side project for a while, so no deadlines, just something to work on when my other writing is done.

So yeah, I guess I’ll be writing about 4.5k words in the next couple of days! It’s going to be a bit of a stretch, especially with watching the baby, but I think I can pull it off.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty Six

Words written: 1,569
Total stories written: 4
Total words written: 21,280
Total words remaining: 8,720
Total words behind: 3,888

It’s been a while since the last nanowrimo update, hasn’t it? Don’t worry, I’m not ghosting it like I did for Camp NaNoWriMo in April! In fact, I’ve been catching up this whole time—just haven’t been able to get to the update posts. When life is perpetually crazy, you really do have to pick and choose which things you’re going to drop and pick up later. I thought I was overwhelmed when I was single, but it wasn’t until now that I’m a husband and a parent that it’s just been physically and temporally impossible to do everything.

Still, things are going well. The “Tolerant and Fair” story (which I’ve renamed to “Welcome to our Crazy Family,” since it does end on an upbeat, conciliatory note) took a lot longer than I was expecting, and probably needs at least one severe rewrite, but it’s done, and I’m actually quite satisfied with it—with the caveat, of course, that it’s a very rough draft. The story I’m writing now (working title: “Bloody Justice”) has been bouncing around in my head for a few days, so the first scene came rather easily, probably because I’m so eager to reach the climax. With a title like “Bloody Justice,” you know it’s going to be fun.

So yeah, I’ll hopefully finish up this Zedekiah Wight story (it is another Zedekiah Wight story, by the way) tomorrow, provided things go well. After that, I have no idea. Some poetry would be nice, but I probably won’t have that luxury, seeing as I’ve fallen so far behind in the word count. Maybe I’ll consult the Mythulu cards again.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Twenty

Words written: 1,315
Total stories written: 3
Total words written: 14,538
Total words remaining: 15,462
Total words behind: 4,822

So I said I was going to write that politically incorrect story, but instead I had a really cute idea for a flash fiction piece last night, and spat it out. Had to do with time travel and the way that my wife always says “can we go to sleep two hours ago?”

Anyways, the wife is feeling very sick right now, throwing up and everything. The baby is asleep, and I really should go to bed too just to be ready for tomorrow. In the afternoon, I’ll be out and about cutting up an old tree and hauling it off to the transfer station, so not sure how much writing I’ll get done. With luck, a solid 2k words. That’s the goal, anyway.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Nineteen

Words written: 957
Total stories written: 2
Total words written: 13,223
Total words remaining: 16,777
Total words behind: 5,169

Finished that story, finally! It’s actually not that bad. Working title is “In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight.” It’s 8.5k words, which is about 3k-4k more words than it should be, but with a bit of work I think I can cut it down. Will probably do that as a side project sometime in the next few months.

Not a super huge writing day today because I helped my sister pick up some stuff from her storage unit down in Manti, and also had to make a Costco run. That took up the whole afternoon, but I did get a good start on the next story, with the working title “Tolerant and Fair.” It is just about the most politically incorrect story I could possibly write, and may actually get banned (or get me banned) from Amazon if I publish it. No joke.

The main character is a twenty-something girl who grew up with three lesbian / gender-nonbinary parents, and she rebelled by dating a straight-edge Christian boy and becoming a Christian herself. They are now about to elope together after joining a colony mission to Mars, but he wants her to introduce him to her parents over a family dinner, so that she won’t regret it later after they’ve eloped.

Basically, it’s the whole “Mom, Dad, meet my rebel boyfriend” sort of meeting with the disapproving parents, except that the religious conservative is the rebel boyfriend and the ultra-liberal types are the disapproving American Gothic parents. It is going to be so much fun to write, and even more fun to submit. I really might submit it to Clarkesworld, Uncanny, and Escape Pod, just to get a rejection that says “please do not submit anything to us ever again.”

But in all seriousness, I know that this story will be on thin ice with Amazon, especially with how they’ve banned When Harry Became Sally (which I own now, by the way. It’s on the TBR). And in all seriousness, I intend to approach the transgender issue with some sensitivity to those who take the other side—but I’m not going to shy away from the fact that I really do think a lot of these girls are being deliberately misdiagnosed and permanently mutilated by a healthcare system that has been totally taken over by radical activists promoting an ideological agenda at their expense. Glenn Beck recently did an interview with Abigail Shrier where they discussed that very topic. Excellent podcast.

So yeah, I’m super excited about that story. With luck, it should be finished in the next couple of days. I know that I’m running behind on my word count for camp nanowrimo, but I really do think I can get it back up before the end, especially with a couple of these projects that I’m really driven to write. Just need a couple of days to really ramp it up.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Fifteen

Words written: 1,751
Total stories written: 1
Total words written: 10,591
Total words remaining: 19,409
Total words behind: 3,929

This story is probably crap, but whatever. I’ll finish it tomorrow for sure, maybe even come up with a twist that will salvage something good from it. But even if I don’t, I’m definitely going to finish it. Blech.

Other than that, a pretty good writing day, with just shy of 2k words. Didn’t get to any publishing tasks, but given how I’ve been using those to procrastinate writing, that’s probably a good thing.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Fourteen

Words written: 914
Total stories written: 1
Total words written: 8,840
Total words remaining: 21,160
Total words behind: 4,712

Only about 1k words today. Still getting into a routine. Not much else to write about: wrote and scheduled my next email newsletter to go out tomorrow, and went to the library as we always do on Wednesdays. Tomorrow should be a good writing day; I expect I’ll finally finish this story (working title: “In the Wake of Zedekiah Wight”) and have the insights necessary to write the next one. If nothing else, I should at least have a working title for it. We’ll see.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Thirteen

Words written: 1,363
Total stories written: 1
Total words written: 7,926
Total words remaining: 22,074
Total words behind: 4658

Decent writing day. I woke up feeling much better, which allowed me to get a lot more done. I’ve also made a conscious decision not to do publishing tasks before noon, so that should help to prioritize the writing.

The problem before was that when I sit down to work (usually while the baby takes her morning nap), I would procrastinate writing by doing publishing tasks instead. Important stuff that does need to get done, but not as important as writing. The afternoon is Mrs. Vasicek’s turn to watch the baby, so that’s when I’ll do the admin type stuff.

Another thing I’m experimenting with is writing on a tablet instead of the desktop, which is set up in the family room where everyone usually hangs out. There are advantages to that (see Stephen King’s On Writing), but when you need to write your way out of a rut, some privacy and/or quiet space can be very helpful to get you to focus. Fortunately, I’ve figured out a way to work with Mrs. Vasicek’s old Kindle Fire. Cheap, crappy tablet, but it has a basic word processing app that produces TXT files, and that’s all I need.

So that’s what’s going on here. Should have a couple of days to get back in the saddle and build the writing momentum again. At some point, I need to haul a bunch of yard waste to the dump and help my sister pull her stuff out of a storage unit in Manti, but those aren’t imminently urgent.

Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Twelve

Words written: 2,349
Total stories written: 1
Total words written: 6,563
Total words remaining: 23,437
Total words behind: 5,053

I’ve been gone on a family vacation for the last few days, so that’s why I didn’t post any updates. But even though I’ve fallen behind a bit, I do still plan to finish Camp NaNoWriMo—and it shouldn’t be too difficult, even though I’ve got 5k words to catch up to. I’m working on two stories right now, fleshing out a new recurring character that has really captured my imagination. I think I wrote about him a little in the last blog post. Anyway, it’s getting late, and I think I’m coming down with a fever, so better turn in for the night.