{"id":1322,"date":"2022-03-28T19:38:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T02:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2022-03-28T19:51:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T02:51:38","slug":"cherry-blossoms-and-nano-prep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/cherry-blossoms-and-nano-prep\/","title":{"rendered":"Cherry Blossoms and NaNo Prep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

April is Camp NaNoWriMo<\/a> time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in the Lower Mainland, it’s also cherry blossom time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sakura trees line a small park in Burnaby (Photo: Author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If I were to tell you that self-publishing my 4th novel, Blood & Water<\/a><\/em>, book #4 in my Rose Cross Academy series, was a slog, it would be an understatement. Although enormous self-publishing success stories can give us indie authors hope, the process is unnecessarily complicated, riddled with pitfalls, and stacked against us smaller indie authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon and KDP. I’m looking at you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that’s for another post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post is all about prepping for Camp NaNoWriMo under the canopy of sakura that’s currently covering my new home-city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re unfamiliar with either NaNoWriMo <\/a>(National Novel Writing Month) or Camp NaNo, think of it as an online community for indie writers and those looking to publish their first or next novel. NaNo offers a place to connect with fellow writers, discover local or online writing communities, and find the motivation you need to write and grow your novels and writing habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fallen cherry blossoms on a brick sidewalk. (Photo: Author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Camp NaNo is a less structured and more open version of NaNoWriMo. Think of Camp as a place for you to set your own goals and work towards them at your own pace without the stress of meeting a daily word count goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I use Camp NaNo as another tool in my motivational toolbox, aside from my Discord groups (which I discovered during NaNoWriMo 2021), and my Zoom group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For April, I’m aiming to flesh out a gaslamp\/low-steampunk fantasy I’m just calling “Four Crows” right now. For this story, I have a beginning, middle, and end figured out, but I haven’t decided if this will be a stand-alone or a series yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Morning raindrops clinging to blossoms. (Photo: Author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, I’m a pantser, 100%. Sure, I can create a novel plan, but heck if I can stick with it. I’ve tried. Oh, I’ve tried to stick to an outline. The writing comes out forced, boring, and reads like I’m just going through the motions of moving characters through a story line. My pantsing brain knows that Character A needs to escape City A, hide in the forest, then travel to City B, but if I have to constrain myself to the how’s<\/em> and why’s<\/em> of that journey, my writing and my creativity suffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, when I say I’m ‘prepping’ for Camp NaNo, what I mean is that I’m developing a writing strategy similar to that which I’d follow during November’s NaNoWriMo. I have a list of scenes I’d like to write in order to connect parts I’ve already written. I don’t always know how those scenes will go, but this is part of my creative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tools I use may seem very rudimentary for prepping–my writing notebook and several coloured pens. I have notes on ideas, what scenes need to be written, bullet points of what I think should happen, and a list of transitions between scenes I need to figure out. During Camp NaNo, I’ll go through my notebook and check off items as they grab my interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
A typical page in my novel notebook, blurred since all my projects are listed. (Photo: Author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As for my other projects, I mentioned earlier I managed to self-publish my 4th novel, after much hair pulling and spew-age of expletives. That’s one book down of two I plan to publish this year! For the remainder of this year, I’m thinking three projects will be occupying my writing time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project #1<\/strong> – This is the second book I’m planning to publish, and it is tickling the 200K word mark. Ouch. The complete manuscript is about 85% done, and I may end up splitting this book into Part 1 and Part 2, then publishing them with months of each other. I’m still going to count this as a single release since this is a single, yet massive, story. And as per my brain (since I can’t seem to write in stand-alone novel mode), I’ve already written a good amount of a sequel to this novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be in the LitRPG genre as it follows a group of people stranded inside a virtual reality RPG game after the virtual reality gear suffers a failure. Think of this as the world of online RPG’s meets Battle Royale<\/a> or The Hunger Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project #2<\/strong> – I’ve briefly mentioned my gaslamp\/low-steampunk fantasy. This is my focus for April and Camp NaNo. This story follows a young girl navigating an 1800’s-esque North America after a war over magic tore it apart. Magic has always been commonplace here. As the industrial revolution looms and people begin relying more on technology instead of magic, war breaks out. Technology and innovationare wiped out along with books and the world’s knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m planning some interesting villains for this novel\/series–one which we’ll kinda be able to figure out early on. This antagonist will suffer a nearly fatal injury early on in the novel, but recover in time to start laying waste to the world. The other villain will be a “slow burn” villain, meaning they’ll start out as a protagonist, then as things happen to them throughout the story, will start turning evil. This character in particular has been fun to write!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The frog guardian of Cherry Blossom Garden, Burnaby. (Photo: Author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Project #3<\/strong> – Other than finishing my current YA series, The Rose Cross Academy,<\/em> I’ve been shying away from YA as I haven’t been liking where the genre has been going in recent years. Many of the novel’s I’ve thumbed through rely on the same tired and unhealthy tropes, all the while still romanticizing toxic relationships, especially when it comes to female main characters. I’ve had an idea for a YA novel in the back of my mind, but have left it on the side due to the above reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am fascinated by the paranormal, so this will be another novel where ghosts and demons provide the underlying conflict. This will be an end-of-days type of novel leaning heavily on the ideas of the Biblical Apocalypse. Since I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and gobbled up anything manga studio CLAMP<\/a> put out, I’ve always had a Tokyo Babylon<\/a>\/X1999<\/a> tale rolling around in my head–two factions facing off over the fate of humanity: one that thinks humanity is too far gone and must be purged from the Earth, and one that thinks humanity may still have hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I plan to be busy this year, and I’ve already kept my fingers moving quite briskly. If Brandon Sanderson can produce four extra novels in a couple years while still cranking out best seller after best seller, I think I can at least make a sizeable dent in my “creative debt” of novel ideals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll see where the months take me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take care, everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Rissa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April is Camp NaNoWriMo time. Here in the Lower Mainland, it’s also cherry blossom time. If I were to tell you that self-publishing my 4th novel, Blood & Water, book #4 in my Rose Cross Academy series, was a slog, it would be an understatement. Although enormous self-publishing success stories can give us indie authors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,8],"class_list":["post-1322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-spring","tag-updates","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6odz9-lk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3666,"url":"https:\/\/www.rissarenae.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/writers-dont-get-scammed\/","url_meta":{"origin":1322,"position":0},"title":"Writers: Don’t Get Scammed!","author":"Rissa Renae","date":"August 20, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"We live in a world where scammers lurk around every digital corner. 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