Camp NaNo 22: A Roadtrip Romance

I'm a pantser meaning I do very little to no formal planning when I write a first draft. I know my main characters are named Georgia Collins and Aiden Best. I know a lot about them and their backstories. I have a very loose idea of the arc that's about to happen, and that's how I like it!

The very fast, sort of illegal roadtrip is based on a real very fast, sort of illegal race/challenge thing that happens on occasion that utterly fascinates me. I've already done a lot of research about it and will be doing more because cars are not my forte (but they are husbands, which is helpful!)

I'm planning on writing out of order since it's a dual timeline book. The book won't be in chronological order, but I'm going to write it in chronological order to help my brain. That means during camp, I'll probably only be writing from Aiden's POV (unless I happen to feel a burning need to write one of Georgia's scenes).

ahh only one bed is one of my favourite tropes!! Can't wait!!!

Great to hear that you've got your story essentials in your head already! Good luck on getting that 35,000, I'm sure you can do it

I love road trip romances! This seems like a light-hearted romantic story and I can already see its going to be a lot of fun! Good luck on achieving your goals!

I wrote 728 words before camp started (which don't count towards my 35k goal).
With a goal of 35k for the month, that'll be 1167 words per day.

LET'S DO THE THING!!!

Day One

Words written: 1200
Total NaNo words: 1200

Line of the day:
The guys looked from her, to me, to her, and then back to me like — where the hell did you find her?


I did three 25-minute writing sprints. The first two were kind of slow starts as I needed to get back into Aiden's voice from when I dabbled with those first 700 words. I also needed to do some research as I went, which is going to happen a lot with this book because I'm writing about something out of my scope of knowledge! But once I got into it, the last sprint went really well and I ended up slightly over my word count goal





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[b][u]Day One[/u][/b]

[b]Words written: [/b]
[b]Total NaNo words: [/b]

[b]Line of the day: [/b]

Day Two

Words written: 251
Total NaNo words: 1451

Line of the day:


Not quite what I wanted to do today, but I finished a scene and then wasn't sure where I was going. (lol a great sign)
But I did a little bit of planning and pondering and I think I know what needs to happen next, I just didn't have the motivation to return today. No worries!

Day Six

*I now need 1342 words per day to hit my goal. still super do-able!!

Words written: 873
Total NaNo words: 2324
^good enough! I'll catch up this weekend

Line of the day:


Never fear, she returns!! :p
I've had some other things to finish up the last few days and was also so tired the last few days I couldn't bring myself to work on this. BUT I had some great think time today in my car - which is truly where plot bunnies never fail to fall into my head <3 I'm ready-ish to go on the next couple of scenes. I'm also going to start channeling my mindset when I was working on Dark Corners, Bright Spaces and utilizing [brackets<3] a lot more when I run into literally anything I have to research. The first draft of DCBS was littered with [enter computer jargon here] and Roadtrip Romance will be [enter car stuff here] so I don't have to slow down and research at this exact moment!!

I'm also reminding myself just about every paragraph that this doesn't have to be good yet. It's such a mind shift going from the final stages of prepping a book for querying to the first draft of a brand new book. Lol I always do this to myself why??

[brackets!!] [square brackets are my fave kind, too!] Yay for car brainstorming - and don't worry, Carlito, I'm sure you've got this! What's that quote about every great book being rewritten? Yeah, that quote

I'M STILL HERE AND DOING THINGS I SWEAR!!!

is it nano if carlito doesn't switch projects at least once???


Okay I switched projects.
Roadtrip romance is at 3630 words (2902 of those being Camp words).
I like what I've done so far and I still have a lot of ideas for this book! BUT I'm just not vibing with it yet. I think it needs a little more marination time and then maybe I can actually write a draft of it during regular Nano?? We'll see...

NOW I'm back to the bunny rom com!! This was the project I started during nano 21 and abandoned about 20k in to keep working on the Liz+Zac reboot (which is actually called Falling on Thin Ice).

I read the 20k-ish I'd written so far and it was plenty messy from pantsing during Nano, but you know what? There's some good stuff in there and I really like this story and I think I'm ready to find my way through this first draft to the end! As a pantser, when I do a first draft I know where we're starting, some of the major beats I want to hit along the way, and the general shape of the arc I'm trying to write. I keep "save the cat" beats in the back of my mind along the way and scenes usually come to me 3-5 at a time and I meander my way through the plot that way!

I've been revising that first 20k-ish and cleaning up the mess I created during Nano and moving some things around and adding some new things in. I don't really know how many words I've actually *written* on it because I've taken some chunks out and added some new chunks and the word count has stayed relatively the same.

I'm about ready to move forward in the story and advance that word count so while I probably won't hit 35k for the month (although you never know, miracles happen lol) I'm excited to see how far we can get before the month is up!!


Bunny rom com word count was: 21944

Current Bunny rom com word count: 20777 ope.

Total NaNo word count: honestly don't even know at this point??

I always struggled with figuring out why my characters in the bunny rom com would agree to fake date. I think fake dating is such a fun trope, but it's such a weird thing to agree to! I thought I had a good idea when I was nanoing, but I figured out a BETTER idea this time around and I think the first act is a lot stronger for it
I wrote a new scene tonight and I'm ALMOST happy with this first act. Only a few more tweaks and then I think we'll be solid!


Words written today: 1424

Bunny rom com total: 22219

Camp total: let's go with 4326

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Carlito wrote:I always struggled with figuring out why my characters in the bunny rom com would agree to fake date. I think fake dating is such a fun trope, but it's such a weird thing to agree to!

me with FakeDeathgagement, a l a s XD I mean, Daniel has a compelling reason to agree to the fake engagement (two reasons, really, one more necessity-based and one more personal), and like Death has a reason but she can't tell him the reason so I'm like,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,doesn't there need to be a good fake reason, but she's literally Death so??? what would the reason be???

unrelated, but I LOVE this aesthetic omg, can we start a new specific category of cottagecore called buncore or something???

@BluesClues BUNCORE is now my official aesthetic.

Perfect hehe