July was a bit busy; busier than a usual month for me with some of the stuff going on at work, and the challenges I attempted. Spoiler alert, I think I failed at each of them. Let’s run through and see if I managed to succeed at anything this month or if I took too much on and spread myself too thin.
Camp NaNoWriMo
July was a Camp NaNo. I made my word goal 50,000. I was taking a vacation, July is typically not as busy as November, which is the full on, official, NaNoWriMo; so why not go for the full shabang? If I couldn’t do it this month, it wasn’t likely to happen in any November. However, I didn’t even write half the words I did in my best NaNoWriMo.
I fell to a combination of faults. One being, deciding to attempt a Camp NaNo at the last second so I didn’t have much planned in the story. I thought I might be able to fake it, or push through since I’ve been picking at this particular idea for a story for a while now. I was also still trying to read the books I chose for my TBR, and worked more hours than I was planning for my job. I also took longer to finish a certification course than planned, but I did finish it.
I was also struggling in this month with Carpal Tunnel, which is why I wasn’t posting anything here either. Seemingly overnight, not even, my very mild and manageable Carpal Tunnel turned into many sleepless nights, and mornings with fingers I couldn’t seem to wake up for several minutes, if not an hour or so. The pain I was waking up with, I’d put around an 8 or 9 out of 10 depending on the morning. I think it’s something with the Air Conditioning, because out of sheer coincidence, I was cold at work and put on my fingerless gloves, which also seemed to help with the pain I was in at the time. When I went to bed that night, in addition to the wrist braces I was wearing, I put winter gloves over them. The next morning I woke up in very little pain. Like 2 out of 10. Much better from the 8 or 9 kind of level pain I was dealing with. Waking up with this pain did not allow me to do much writing.
I have a doctor’s appointment in late August, it was unfortunately the earliest I could get in since it’s not real urgent, to talk about what more I could be doing. I may also look in to voice software for my laptop. I’ve tried them in the past and seriously dislike all the “new line”, “new paragraph”, “period”, “open quote”, etc kind of things you have to say with those software options. I totally understand why you have to, but it slows down the process. It would also limit where and when I could write. Currently I’m in the Living Room, my husband is playing a video game, while watching YouTube videos, and I’m snuggling with a snoring dog. I bet all this noise would mess with the software. I may not have much of an option though.
Reading
I finished nothing but audiobooks. I did get almost halfway through The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy: Volume One, and started one of the ebooks while out and about, but that was it for physical reading. The books I finished were:
I finished this early in the month, but I don’t really remember much specifically from it. I remember it was okay, but wasn’t really what I was looking for. Probably why I can’t really remember much of anything from the book.
This book was addicting. It is a chosen one story, with the main character Breen learning her mother has been lying to her all her life. Her father didn’t stop loving her, but in fact made certain she would be taken care of in life, no matter the path she chose. She goes on a journey with her friend Marco to Ireland in hopes of finding and reuniting with her father. Instead, she learns about a secret world where her father was really from. The ending was such a cliff-hanger I immediately went out to the Google Play Books store and bought the second book, The Becoming.
Since this is the second book of a trilogy, I won’t say much about the story itself. I again though went to grab the third and final book of the trilogy only to learn, I have to wait until November!! 😱
So, despite November being NaNoWriMo, and me considering being silly again and trying again to write 50,000 words, I will very likely be listening to The Choice, somewhere in the month.