You know what the problem is with becoming organized and efficient? I really miss being able to write about whatever random thing I felt like it. Sure, I wasn’t getting anything accomplished that way and I wasn’t moving towards my goals effectively in a big picture sense but, man, I felt free! If I wanted to write a random blog post about how my house is being taken over by tiny ants to the point that I FOUND SOME IN THE BABY’S POOPY DIAPER FOR FARK’S SAKE or spend the day obsessively writing the bio for a pen name I was thinking of using for a random story I might write some day, I could.
Now I have so little time to write that I have to be all focused and working on stuff I’m supposed to be working on the second I sit down or I’ll never get done and, sure, I’m achieving my dreams and building my career but where’s the fun in that? I miss blogging. I don’t know if you miss reading my posts. I’m not sure I care if anyone is reading them at all. Posting something random on the internet where someone might read it made me feel alive and I miss it.
OK, and FINE, Productivity Plan Hillary, posting regularly on the blog again would be good for traffic, building the mailing list, earning revenue, blah blah blah. Shut up, no one likes you.
Which brings me to Camp NaNoWriMo’s July session.
I’m in, of course, and I plan to use it to write a ton of blog posts, enough to keep my two main blogs (this and The Whine Seller) active for the next few months. Some will be chatty informal kind of posts like this and others will be proper quality writing type articles, just to keep you on your toes. I feel like the few blog posts I have gotten out lately are filled with me saying, “I’ll talk about this more later” or “I owe you a bigger post about this” and now is when I make good on that!
My goal is to write at least 12 posts for each blog which should take me through the end of the year with active content. For this blog, my To Write list includes long promised posts on my new productivity system, Kanban, writing task management, updates on my various works in progress, etc.
For The Whine Seller, I’ve outlined a long list of “war stories” from my 20+ years of selling online that I just feel like telling. I plan to write them up, share them as posts and see what people think of them. If people like them enough maybe I’ll compile them into a book or something someday. I have long toyed with the idea of doing a combo eBay business slash / memoir book and this gives me an excuse to test it out.
Would my July be more productively spent doing editing and revision on those two plays? Yes. Of course. I really need to get those plays done and this thought CONSUMES ME. But the fact is, between trying to make this the Best Summer Ever for the big kid before she heads off to kindergarten, chasing around the baby, surviving the dystopian hellscape we find ourselves in politically right now and the fact that I only have about one exhausted hour a day to work in unless I stay up all night, editing has been nearly impossible. Turns out, a super mentally taxing task like revision is harder when you are distracted by horrors and completely sleep deprived, who know? What I’m hoping will happen is that Camp NaNo will put me in such a writing mood that I’ll find myself wanting to edit anyway and secretly get some of that done this month as well, but I’m not counting on it.
Honestly, I would be perfectly happy to just get all these blog posts off my list so I can coast through the busy season at the end of the year knowing my sites will be active . Summer is always a low word count season for me anyway what with the swimming and the parenting and the late nights because the sun is up partying anyway. And I’ve honestly by really itching to write up some of these posts for a while so it will be satisfying to check them off the list.
I’m setting my word count goal at 45,000 words because that’ll make it my highest word count month yet this year and beat my April Camp Session. If I write more, dandy!
Will you be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this July?
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