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Camp NaNoWriMo: The Last Weekend

Remember Camp NaNoWriMo? Yeah, me too. I told myself I’d write 50k this month for that. Here we are at the last weekend. Some of my friends have already finished. Others are on track but still writing. A few more are way behind.

And then there’s me. Last time we talked about Camp NaNo I was a quarter of the way to my goal. Theoretically this meant I would hav written a few thousand words a day to reach 50k. If I were smart I would have done this.

Apparently I was not smart. That’s why I’m at 16,000 words right now with two days to go. Meep. That’s over 30,000 words in two days, meaning I’d have to write a lot over the next two days in order to finish. But I like the story in progress, so finishing is definitely worth a shot. In any case, it’s good preparation for the Three-Day Novel.

Send help.

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The characters with no names

The point I mentioned last night about my novel still rings true almost 17,000 words in, so now I get to bring it up.

None of my characters have proper names.

My story is told in first person, so that eliminated the need to figure out the main character’s name for awhile. He’s a pretty solitary ghost on the whole, and I don’t think any of the characters know his name. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the characters know each other’s names. Actually, that’s a lie. There were two girls at a show the ghost narrator sneaked into in the beginning who probably knew each other’s names, though the names were unmentioned. And of course, the ghost’s love interest and the love interest’s apparent human interest probably know each other’s names, but those names haven’t come up in the story yet. The former’s name will likely come up eventually, assuming I ever get around to naming any of these characters. As for the other characters, who knows? My cast of characters is small so far, and I could probably count all the characters on two hands. Distinguishing the characters by calling them “the ghost” (another ghost who is not the narrator) or “the girl” or “the guy” hasn’t gotten me into trouble yet. This method will get me into trouble eventually, so maybe I should start introducing names into the story.

Is the lack of proper names in the story a bad thing? One could argue that “the girl” or “the guy” or “the ghost” are names. Names are what we make of them, and they can be whatever we please. On the other hand, proper names are easier to deal with and are much less awkward when you’re reading an entire book. Are there any books that brave the world of improper names for a whole book? I’m curious now. Enlighten me.

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Camp NaNoWriMo: Day Two

As promised, I’m a quarter of the way through Camp NaNoWriMo. The story’s starting to develop, and I’m figuring out where to go next with it. The ghost’s love interest is not just a human, but a ghostbuster. Hello conflict. The conflict in this story is going to be huge, and I’m enjoying the story so far. Figuring out the next step hasn’t been too difficult after the first few scenes.

For those who struggle with this, my words of advice: think of the thing you would expect your characters to do, and then do the opposite. I found myself doing this several times throughout the plot. My ghost character could have floated away from the guy selling the roses like his common sense said he should have, but instead he stole a few, and that’s how he was found a few scenes later.

The other interesting bit about this story may or may not still be relevant tomorrow, but I’ll take that chance. I also probably won’t finish this story in four days, despite my writing speed today. I have nonwriting things to be doing!

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Camp NaNoWriMo has begun. Guess what my word count is.

Since it’s almost 1am on the third, I can safely say that day three of Camp NaNoWriMo’s July session has begun. Based on past NaNo experiences, one might think that I’m well ahead of the daily goal. Well, I’m not. I haven’t written a single word yet despite having a two-word plot summary but no actual plot. Those two words are “ghost romance”, for the curious.

To be honest, I haven’t given much thought to the plot, which should be a good motivator for me to get going. After all, I came up with the idea for last year’s Three-Day Novel five minutes before the thing began and still finished it on time. This should be cake in comparison, right? Just sit down and start writing about anything at all like I did then? Who cares whether the second person in the romance is a ghost or a human. That can be figured out later, right? Maybe the first few thousand words can be ghost adventures before deciding. Hey, it worked before. Who says it won’t work again?

The worst case scenario is that I’ll start really late and rush to the finish. The only problem here is that my past writing history tells me that I can do this and turn out okay, barring any unforeseen circumstances like real life. Whatever I do, I should do something related to writing, even if it’s figuring out a summary beyond “ghost romance”. To the plot!