April is proving to be productive

We’re only into day five of April, and Happy Easter by the way, but even after only five days, I’m feeling pretty good about my creative progress so far.

I began Camp NaNo on Wednesday and after committing to 30,000 words for the month of April, I was able to get 1,500 tackled by the time I finally had to tear myself away from the computer and get to bed.  That’s after I’d already worked a full day and spent a little time with the family before I hid away in my office for the remainder of the evening. 

The fact that I should be writing an average of 1,000 words every day isn’t very difficult.  It’s just that I know I might not get to write every single day considering other factors that will come up during the month so I was very pleased with myself for doing so well the first day.  Thursday and Friday were off days…that didn’t take long did it?  But my excuse is a late parent-teacher conference on Thursday and time spent with my family on Friday evening.

I made it up yesterday, though.  I took on the bare minimum of household chores I knew I couldn’t put off and then I got to work on my book.  After a couple of hours I had another 2,500 words added to my word count.  When I realized I had reached 4,000 words, I took a much-deserved break and spent a couple hours outside in the sun, but afterwards I was still able to add about another 1,000 words to my word count before I finally called it a day.  It felt great.  Not just the number of words, although I’m happy about that, but what felt great was that I was already beginning to feel drawn into the story through my characters.  Due to the timing and the fact that I’m working in a completely different genre, I thought I’d have to work harder at it this time to hear what the characters had to say.  But it happened much sooner than I expected. I love it when that begins to take place because I know the characters are going to help me move the story along and I look forward to what happens when the characters begin to surprise me. 

It’s a good thing I put in that little extra work yesterday because today was spent with family for the Easter holiday and I haven’t had any real time to write.  Even so, I’m pleased with my word count after the first five days of camp.  I’m at just under 5,000 in five days, so at this point, I’m right on track with my word count goal.

You’d think taking part in Camp NaNo might be enough for me right now but I also decided to take part in another challenge during the month of April.  This challenge is easy in that I can do what I want, when I want, but I’m trying to take in all that’s being offered because it’s come to me at the perfect time as I try to sort out my thoughts.  The daily reflections and photo prompts provide inspiration and help me focus on some much-needed attention when it comes to my mind, body and soul.  I’ve really enjoyed the challenge so far.

I’m also posting again only a week later than my last post, so the beginning of April has proven to be a productive one.  This is a step in the right direction as I continue to get back into the grove of staying focused on not only what I want to do, but what I need to do to plow through the field of grief I’ve been stuck in for the past few months.  Any movement forward is good, whether it includes baby steps or great big leaps.  I’m happy either way.  With the progress I’ve made so far, I’m now even more excited to move into my second week of challenges. 

I’ll try to post an update with the progress I’ve made again next weekend.  Have a great week!