Camp Nano and Writing Update

I just wanted to give you a quick update on my Camp Nano experience. My goal was to write 20 k words for my romantic crime novel “Murder and Pumpkin Spice”, and it was not hard for me to reach that goal. I finished a week early, which shows me that I have become a faster writer in the course of last year. In 2020 it was a struggle for me to reach those 20k words in a month. That is the good news, of course, and while I know that 20k is not much for many writers for one month, I am rather content with that number. As I’m not planning to make writing my sole career, I don’t have to be as fast as someone who wants to support a family by self-publishing, for example.

What helped me write faster was that I had already plottet my novel. As it was the second part of a series, I also knew the characters well and didn’t have to think too long about how they might react in certain situations. I also enjoyed it to write everyday and be able to prioritize writing over editing and stuff like housework.

My writing time at the moment has changed back to the evenings, because my baby daughter, who is eight months old now, goes to bed early and gets up at 7 o’clock. But I like writing in the evening when I know it’s the last thing I’m going to do that day. (Except reading a little in bed most evenings.)

I am content with the number of words I write in a month. I must say however, that I am much slower as far as revising and editing my novels is concerned. At the moment, I have finished quite a few draughts and I know that they need work to become the story I want them to be. While writing is fun for me most of the time and I enjoy the process, I often have to give myself a good kick to start editing. I know that editing is what makes your novel shine and also that I can probably learn a lot by doing it, but while writing is often a kind of flow experience for me, editing is actual work. I know I won’t get around it. I’m editing my Fantasy novel “A Tale of Runes and Ravens”, and I only have 100 pages to go, so an end is in sight. However, that is only the first round of editing as I haven’t had feedback from beta readers yet, and I know there are some changes I will have to make.
“Grauzeit” is currently being read by betas. It was the novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo, and so I know there will have to be quite a few improvements, I’ll have to make, as I wrote it so fast.
Still, I’m trying to find the peaks in the editing process as it allows me to get to know my characters better, and I can also improve my writing style. What about you? Do you like writing or editing better? Let me know in the comments.

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