I’m signed up for Camp NaNo this month. Working on my 3rd draft of Madam Cloom’s Garden, this time with a thorough outline and some major world-building under my belt.  Feels good, man. I feel like I know the world really well and it doesn’t take much to think up places or historical parts as needed. Determined to keep the word count goal down though at 25k instead of the normal 50k. I’m really trying to focus on quality over quantity this month, but using Camp NaNo to keep me motivated.

It does make me realize that I haven’t posted any updates for this story in quite a while! Time to remedy that.

Project: Madam Cloom’s Garden
Current Word Count: 12,200
New Words Written: 1,432

Progress: Wrote quite a tense scene that will likely not be making the cut for the final book. I know, it feels weird to have progress that isn’t really progress, but it helps me pin down the complex relationship between these folks. Climbing inside of a character’s head takes a few practice runs first, and it’s good to get a feel for how they deal with stressful events outside of your protagonist’s (admittedly limited) field of view.

Commentary: I’m so glad Shaleigh is nearing the end of Part 1 of this book! Sure, I’m writing a few filler scenes here and there, but she’s well on her way to Part 2, and this time I’m really happy with how it’s shaping up so far. I don’t feel like I’ve got a ton of fixes, corrections, markups, and characters changes to make after I get done with this draft. After trying to start this book twice since my initial draft, I’m happy that the pieces are finally falling into place.

Please tell me it’s not just using an outline that is making this process so much easier!

Camp NaNo: My username is lenaf007 if you want to be friends. 🙂 You’ll probably have to find my over on the NaNoWriMo site to add me though (same username there too), I don’t think you can have friends at camp. The irony there is just so funny…