Camp Nano Update Week 3

It's time for the weekly update - I'll make it brief because ONLY FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE END OF NANO!


  • I have been so lazy. So SO lazy. I put the 'pro' into procrastination this week. Baking, walking, marathoning Grimm, lying on my bed doing literally nothing...you name it - I've been doing that instead of writing. For good reason.

  • I hit the 'I hate my story' part of this journey. And I don't mean just a mild dose of tearful 'this won't go right' and 'I'm a terrible writer' type blues. I mean a deep burning hatred for this particular story. I don't want to ever touch it again.

  • There were a lot of contributing factors towards this. I've been having trouble with the narratives all along, and then the main character, but everywhere I look I see similar stories, shows and movies popping up and I just lost heart in the originality of the idea. I lost faith and just talk about it made me want to punch a puppy.

  • I hit a massive slump in general. Reading, writing and blogging (hence this post being a day late). I have deadlines for my university magazine and I'm just staring at the half-finished articles like ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH. 

  • I blame Go Set A Watchman. I was being super productive until I started reading that book and it's been such a struggle to get into that it stalled everything. Thanks a lot Harper Lee.

  • MOOD SWINGS. Okay so this is a little personal and I'll spare the details, but I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes there are reasons outside of your control that prevent you from being about to get in the writing zone. Sometimes you just feel off, for no real reason and you'll all over the place. Sometimes you can write through them, channel them to particular scenes. And sometimes you just can't. 

  • I did hardly any sprinting this week. I was pretty busy with other things (see the procrastination section) but I think not sprinting really made it worse. Sprinting has been good  for me throughout this process and I should have made more of an effort to sprint!
  • I started walking. I'm in Ireland and it's a beautiful country, so I decided to start walking to clear my head and tire me out in the evenings so I can sleep better. There's a lake nearby which is really beautiful and the other night I walked 4 miles which is great for me.

  • It started to inspire me. I've heard authors say that if you're struggling with a scene to go outside and take a walk, which sounds like the easiest thing in the world but I never actually did it. I started to plan out dialogue the way I used to back when I was always writing lots; I would run through the conversations in my head (and sometimes out loud...I hope that doesn't make me sound too insane) and get to know my characters like that, build scenes around those interactions.



  • I started working on Polaris 2. I love this world and the characters in these stories so returning to it, and starting to plot out my story has brought me some happiness this week!

  • I won't make my 50K target. Yeah, I'm bummed because I started so strongly and was so enthusiastic. Yes, I'm disappointed in myself. But I am trying to focus on the positives: that I wrote anything at all and that I made a great group of friends.

  • I'm going to make sure I write every day between now and the end. Wish me luck!


As always, how is it going for you guys? Hope you're doing better than I am! Let me know in the comments below :)

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