Camp NaNo July '24: Shadow of the Orange Tree

Oh I thought I responded already XD thank you so much @redcarnation! I love your covers as well - I thought they were so cool and mysterious, and I was just like, oooh I wanna know more about this and the lighting is really cool and I love the vibe! (I'd love to hear about it if you'd want to tell me :p)

July 30th
Hey guess what I actually did something for once. Okay, so. I read through the rest of my draft which should not have taken this long, but like, I read like 80% of it today so... I blame the fact that I either haven't had time or had different priorities and that's why it's July 30th and only today have I done the one simple thing I should've completed by the 2nd.

So.

All my thoughts are in here, if you're crazy enough to read them. XD

Spoiler

As I was reading I was like, "OOOH actually hold on did I write that??" to "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh my gosh this is horrible did I write this???" over and and over again in a never ending cycle. I had so much cringey, boring, and/or ultra mega cliche stuff, but I also had lines and chapters that had me flabbergasted. I did not know anything really good would come out of it? But it did. Probably. (Honestly I'm probably very biased so half of that awe is probably not deserved >.<)

So. Now all I have to do is rewrite the whole thing, which even if I keep most of the original story I'd have to rewrite it all to change the time period because medieval-esk was not working. No, no, it needs to be contemporary.

Even with us so close to the end of July, I'm still gonna work on this tomorrow and hopefully get some things in my story straight. Anyway thanks for reading if you got to the end of this! ^^

Before I blabber, I just want to say thank you to everyone who offered me encouragement and help throughout all of this! You've all been so kind, and thanks for following along and guiding me through. To another Camp NaNo finished, and I'll see some of you hopefully in the future. (NaNoWriMo in November, anyone? )

@Spearmint, @Snoink, @redcarnation, @Carlito, @EllieMae

Okay that's it for you guys down below is pretty boring XD

July 31st and Wrap Up

Today I finished reading through my notes and wrote some notes of my own now that I've... actually... read through it all... and boy are there things. Many, many things. But also, strangely, not enough. Idk haha
I also started the rewrite of the next draft, and I kind of know where stuff is going now, for the most part.

Which leads us to the goals I set! Which I think I managed to do all of them?!
Read through and go through notes, check
Figure out where I want the story to go, check-ish
Start rewriting, technically check?
Work on characters, check
Have fun, definitely check!
Read what everyone else is up to... check!

I did start rewriting a bit, although not much, but it's very different and actually in the style that I wanted, so...
As for figuring out the story... I know much more now than I did before, although the whole story is not completely figured out, which isn't what I wanted anyway. I'm just glad I finally know what direction I'm going and now I have ideas on how to fix stuff. I don't know if this counts as finisher for NaNo officially, however I'm exactly where I wanted to be by now for this story, so... I'd count it a win, even if not official.

Yay!!!!!

Honestly, I think anybody who makes an honest effort toward their goal is a winner anyway. You probably did a lot more work than you would have otherwise!

Congratulations!

Seconding what Snoink said! Looks like you made a lot of progress this month, especially with plotting and figuring out what you want your novel to be, which is def important-- marvelous job, Ora!! See you in November ;D