April 2016 Camp NaNoWriMo is Over - Winner Time


Not quite as many words as I hoped, but still hit my goal.

Camp NaNoWriMo Winner 2016As we close out April, it is time to submit my official word count for Camp. Yep, I hit my final count and can enter the winner’s circle, but it’s bitter sweet. Although I penned some more scenes for my novel, Steel Strong, it wasn’t as much as I’d planned. In fact, I’d already lowered my goal to 25,000 as I knew it would be a tough month with all the activities I'm doing.

One thing that kept me busy was updating my website. What’s great about Camp NaNo is that you can work on just about anything, not just novels. In my case, I wrote a lot of code for my site’s makeover. Gathering up all those edits and updates I had made, my final count pushed me past my goal. Nice.

When I first participated in Camp NaNo in 2014, things were much easier. For one, I wasn’t working out as much. For another, my ZX81 programs were pretty much the only other hobby I was actively pursuing. And, I was dedicated. I wanted to get that first novel done and I pushed myself to do it.

Camp 2015, as I noted before, was a bust for the exact opposite reasons. I was busy at work, busy working out, and lacked the motivation to continue. And that is the key: the lack of motivation. Even this Camp, my focus was elsewhere. Not that I didn’t have ideas for my book, just that upgrading to HTML5 was more interesting. Perhaps it is better to say, I reprioritized my hobbies and focused elsewhere.

I’m not disappointed though. April has been crazy and although I may not have gotten much further on Steel Stronger, I still made progress. I also wrote two, now three, blog posts—way more than usual. The cherry on top is, of course, still my website code. Pushing over 20,000 words, those lines of codes are what allowed me to finish out this month.

For those that participated in Camp 2016, I wish you success no matter how many words you ended with. As my running coach likes to say, “It’s not about how fast you go, it’s that you’re here.”



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