First Camp Nano in the Books!

July was my first time participating in Camp Nanowrimo, though I've tried to participate in Nanowrimo every year since 2007.  I always love having a push to write, which has been my favorite thing about Nanowrimo, even when I didn't win. But participating in Camp always felt like too much - I don't know if it was the timing or just my mindset.

Summer is actually a great time for me to write, because work is a little slower and my kid is up playing longer, since the sun's out later, so that gives me time to explore my ideas. Since I started pushing myself to write daily this year, and have actually been writing daily since June, this seemed like a good way to continue my streak.

Spoiler alert: I won!

I put a little more at stake for Camp Nanowrimo, though. I challenged myself to a 20,000 word short story... but really, I wanted write about 1,000 words of fiction most days. One day I knew I'd be off work, so I set a goal for 1,500 (and didn't reach it - that'll teach me!), and one day I knew I'd be meeting my overall goal of 20,000 words, so I relaxed to 500 words. Since my 20,000 goal would be reached before the end of the month, my more informal goal was to complete that one short story, and at least start two more. I want to aim towards finishing more so I can start submitting like I did in college (and have hardly done since then, whoops).

Here are some stats for my month of Camp

• I wrote 31/31 days!
• I wrote 25,956 words total.
• I reached my 20,000 word goal on July 19th.
• I wrote an average of 837 words a day.
• My biggest writing day was 1630 words.
• My smallest writing day was 76 words. (Let's be honest - I barely tried that day. It was a big day and I was drifting off to sleep before I remembered I hadn't written, and I didn't want to break the streak. But I'll allow it.)
• I wrote 11 fiction pieces - four are complete. I have ideas on how to finish 3 others. The rest... who knows! I'll have to look them back over after some time away.

Dahl Study: Mr. Botibol

My author study of Roald Dahl started with a reading of his Collected Stories while watching the accompanying episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Each Friday I'll recap a story and show (with spoilers, just so you know), but I encourage you to read and watch them on your own if you're interested!

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"Mr. Botibol" from Collected Stories (read 7/14/19)

Mr. Botibol has lunch with a businessman who wants to buy his father's business. He accepts the first offer, even though the businessman threw a number out there to get the bidding started. The businessman is excited about the deal and orders lots of drinks for the two of them. Mr. Botibol isn't used to drinking, and the alcohol goes to his head. He starts talking about success, and how he's never had any. He gets home and listens to the radio, which is playing a symphony. He is overcome by the music and pretends to conduct it from his chair. It makes him feel good, so he stands up and gets into it with his whole body. He's exhausted when it's over, but feels proud of himself. He pretends that he composed the work and just conducted it, and the audience is demanding more. He looks up when more symphonies will be on the radio, and conducts those, too.
     This all makes him feel so good that he decides to convert a room in his home into a theater. He installs theater seating, a small stage, a box for the conductor, and special record players and speakers. He gets records of different kinds of applause, and buys a variety of symphonies to conduct. He loves acting like a famous composer. Botibol then decides to get a piano so he can pretend to play. He goes to the store to get one rigged to be silent, then goes to buy more piano records. There he meets a woman who starts talking about what music she loves. Never really having relationships, he awkwardly invites her over to his house to listen to music. She agrees and comes over and he explains his hobby to her. She doesn't seem to think it's weird, and pretends to play the piano while he conducts her. When he invites her back, she says she can't come because of work. She reveals that she's a piano teacher.

"Mr. Botibol's First Love" from Tales of the Unexpected (viewed 7/14/19)

The episode was pretty much the same as the written story. Overall it was an interesting story to read, because it seems like a pretty strange hobby. I thought it was amusing at one point - who hasn't danced as if they're onstage, or sang into a fake microphone and pretended they're a famous singer? But once the woman came over, I saw it from her point of view and realized how strange I would have thought it was if a man acted that way on a "date". The visual version of the story wasn't as interesting, but that's just my personal opinion.