Doing a warm-up 25k “Half-NaNo” this July with Camp NaNoWriMo

As you may recall, I drastically slashed my writing goals for the year because this was going to be such a wild year, my first as a new parent. Here’s a little visual on how that’s going:

Let’s just say, the writing is clearly not happening every day as it is supposed to BUT it is at least happening in some form. I was actually caught up and then ahead for a little while there though I’m in a deficit again as I write this. My goal is about 274 a day which I just realized the chart doesn’t actually show a line for at all but you get the idea.

Because I figured getting writing in at all this year would be hard, I’ve cheated a little. I’m letting myself count blogging, writing I do on various family projects (justifying that one to myself as those may someday end up becoming part of this memoir-thingie I’ve been working on in the background all this time), and some writing I do for work. My thoughts are that the most important thing for this year is just to keep the habit of writing so I’m being much more generous to myself with what I can count than ever before.

To the surprise of no one, now that it counts just as good as real writing, the bulk of my word count this year has been from cheat writing like this, especially blogging.

My blogging goal for this year was simple. I figured my usual volume of posts across all my sites was going to be impossible what with the new tiny human in my life but I figured one (real) post a week, both here and on The Whine Seller was doable. (With real being defined as a post I wrote, not something automated like the digests.) I wasn’t really expecting to write a brand new post a week but I figured between “live” posts (the kind I write and then post immediately) and my queue of pre-written posts to fill in the gaps, it would work out. My blogs would stay active, my writing muscles would stay limber.

But while I’ve managed it for most of the year, I’ve still missed a few here and there. When I wrote this post, I did it with the assumption that it would be one for the queue and would post sometime in the future but, lo, apparently I’d blown through my queue already without realizing it. I think it’s a commentary on how fast this year is going that a whole pile of posts can get used up once a week and I barely even notice that that much time has passed. So, even with the bulk of my writing being blog related, I’m still struggling to meet my paired down posting schedule.

My point in telling you this is that I feel like it’s finally time to get myself to get back on track and focusing my efforts less on just getting any old words down and more on working on specific projects. I need to start figuring out how to produce like I was before even if I have much less time to work. Working smarter, not harder if you will.

The July session of Camp NaNoWriMo starts today. Back in the April session, I set a meager goal of 10k words but I hit it and went a little bit above it which boosted my confidence. See, baby or not, as an ML I have to hit my 50,000 words for main NaNoWriMo in November so I really need to start working towards that since I haven’t even been able to write 50,000 words so far this year in 6 whole months, let alone in a month. So I’m going to attempt a warm-up half NaNo (aka 25,000 words) this July to get me ready for November.

And to make it a little harder, I’m giving myself the restriction that over 25% of this 25k has to be on projects, not things like blogging etc.

The main reason I’m telling you this is because it makes me feel much more accountable for my goal. I’ll be super embarrassed to fail after I said I was going to do this to all of you so it will ensure I give it my all (see: Why shame is sometimes the very best motivator). So even if you couldn’t possibly care less, try to make a stern face like you’ll be very disappointed in me if I fall short. It’ll be helpful, I swear!

If you want to track my progress, here’s where I am right now:

I’m averaging 260 words a day (out of the 275 I’m supposed to be writing) and I’m at 46,781 when I should be at 49,315 for today. So 2,534 behind as of right this second. Which is, really, not very much if you think about it.

But, if I really slam down 25,000 words this month, I’ll be almost three quarters of the way done with my goal for the year with half the year to go so that would be awesome.

How are your 2013 writing goals shaping up? Is anyone else signing up for the July session?