Well, it’s over. (Well, actually today is the last day so if you’re participating you have until midnight wherever you’re at, but I validated last night.)

I validated, but way under my original goal of 31k. Somehow this month just plain got away from me, and in the interest of having it not happen in November I’m going to be taking a look back at what went wrong.

Or as near as I can figure, anyhow.

Part of it was too much time. I’m not working so I had lots of time. Which meant that I had lots of time to procrastinate and plan to do it “tomorrow.”

Part of it was too low of a goal, which kind of goes hand in hand with too much time. I had set my original goal at 31k, a mere thousand words a day.  Should have been a no brainer considering that I wasn’t working, right?  Right. Er, wrong. An “easy” goal coupled with too much time resulted in no sense of urgency which resulted in nothing getting done.

The third major problem was that I was working on an existing project. Now, I’ve done that for Camp before, but that was to finish something that was in progress, not write scenes to be worked into the (more or less) finished manuscript. That (at least for me) results in a mental block because I want to get it right, not just get it done.

(And then there was the fact that I was having trouble getting the scene to play out in some sort of compromise between what I had planned and the direction it went off in.)

So, I think that sums up July Camp, which leads to…

Now what?

Well, now that camp is over and the pressure (or non pressure) is off, I’m going to finish the scenes I need for Onyx Sun and hopefully get it to a beta reader or two (again).

And then (so that I’m not trying to do too many things at once) I’m going to work on getting changes entered to the remaining books of the Academy of the Accord series.

And I want to organize all of my started stories and start working on outlines for them.

Yeah, I think I have enough to keep me out of trouble for a while.

A long while.

I’m writing!  Okay, so I’m not working on the scene for Onyx Sun as planned, but I’m writing.

After Monday’s post I got to thinking that maybe working on something so close to done during a NaNo session isn’t such a good idea. There’s too much pressure to get it right instead of just getting it done.

So, I’m writing quick little scenes that may or may not develop into full novels. Of the four I’ve done so far two will and two won’t. Well, one of the two that will might actually be something that fits into an existing start that’s not been outlined at all yet, so we’ll see.

Productive? Not really. But it has me writing again and having fun with words and ideas.  (And isn’t that the spirit of NaNoWriMo?)

At this point, though, I’m pretty sure I’m not even going to hit the 10K that I set my word count goal down to, but at least I’m writing.

And I’m having fun.

Meanwhile, this post is kind of later than normal because of a minor crisis. I couldn’t find my grommet setter. It has rematerialized, so all is good and I can get back to work on my envelope flip book for the exchange at Swap-Bot.

What motivates you to write?

Actually, let’s look at the flip side of that question, too:

What unmotivates you?

I’m suffering from an abundance of unmotivation this month, which really sucks because it’s Camp NaNoWriMo, and not only did I, for the first time ever, set my word count goal for under 50k, I actually decreased it from 31K to a miserable 10K because I just can’t seem to get focused and motivated. (I’m not counting April because I had an editing goal instead of a writing one for that camp.)

I don’t know what it is but I’m guessing it’s multiple causes:

1) brain-melting heat and humidity (especially this last week!)

2) the rescue dog fiasco

3) too much free time

4) the project in question

The weather can only be blamed for so much and the dog thing was a week or week and a half of an issue at the most, so that leaves the last two points, both of which are probably more pertinent, so let’s look at them in more detail.

Too much free time.

I think I’ve written about this before. I seem to be more productive when I have not just a deadline, but less time.  It always seemed that I could get more writing done in a couple hours before work than on an entire two days off.

And since I’m currently job-hunting I have lots of free time to not write.

(And to think that since I wasn’t working I had considered upping my goal to 50K…)

So, yeah. Having lots of free time unmotivates me.

Now for the project in question.

I’m not working on a novel.  Well, I am, but only sort of. I’m writing (not writing) a scene to be added to Onyx Sun.  There’s going to be another scene (which also isn’t written) in addition to this one to be added to the book.

So, I’m more revising than writing. And I’m so close to being able to get this book finished and released.

Really.  Finish this scene and write the other one, get them both integrated into the main manuscript, tweak a couple other things that are bugging me, get it printed again and go over it one more (hopefully last) time and release it in September.

You’d think that being that close to publishing would be a big motivator, wouldn’t you?

You’d be wrong.

It just looks like so much long dark dreary work ahead.

And if that just doesn’t suck the motivation right out of you I don’t know what will.