Young Writers Society

In order to work more on my solo projects, I have decided to create a passion project and have been writing on it for about two weeks. Morphing it into a Camp NaNo project just seems natural.

This story revolves around an 18 year old boy, Railyn Yora. You see, he is special. As he hit puberty, he developed powers. Unsure of what they were and what to do with them, both he and the small, po-dunk town he lived in shunned him. His parents kicked him out of the house, his friends distanced themselves, and he stopped going to school.

However, when one Headmaster of Eternia Academy Corrick Malair finds a powered vigilante in the middle of nowhere, America, he decides to take the kid under his wing.

Railyn wants to make a difference in the world. But, more importantly, he wants the world to accept him for who he is, every aspect of him.

The problem? Eternia Academy isn't a normal school. Railyn will have to deal with not being a normal guy while juggling everything the Academy sends his way. Railyn isn't quite sure just what he signed up for by attending Eternia Academy.

Camp NaNo Goals

• Get to 25000 words
  
  Right now, I'm at around 3000. That makes my goal around 20000. If I reach this mark, this will become the most I've ever written on a solo project.
• Flesh out Railyn & Corrick in this new environment.
• Add two more main characters.

And that's about it! I'm making sure not to worry myself with plot/lore/worldbuilding. This focus is to pour things onto the paper. I need to get past that boundary of no motivation to write and overthinking what I do write.

So! My daily goal is to write 750 words. If I manage to that, then I will reach that 25k mark

How cool! I love that you're working on a passion project and you're trying to focus on getting the story out rather than worrying too much about plot/lore/wordbuilding (that's what revisions are for!) How exciting that this could end up being the longest solo project you've done!!
I'll be cheering you on! You got it 💜

@Carlito thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement!

So, I'm actually writing writing this, like with a pen. So, 750 words might realistically take me too long daily. That will now be my stretch goal, and 500 words will be my new daily goal. If I get that, then I'll reach 20k words by the end of the month. It's not quite breaking my record, but it'll definitely allow me to have a further grasp on writing solo.

Camp Nano Starting WC: 5195 words

July 1 WC: 410 words

Total WC: 5605 words

Notes: I've hit a bit of a roadblock where I need to describe the actual Eternia Academy that the whole story is revolving around. Instead of just trying for something not great, I decided to call it an early night and write that tomorrow. Overall, though, I thought I made some good progress, even if I didn't meet my goal today. I'm on track to make up for it tomorrow.

I've also changed pens so I can see which day I wrote what. Right now I'm alternating between red and pink. I might start posting things like pics of my writing and my favorite sentence or something, but who knows. I'd much rather focus my energy on writing ^^

July 2 WC: 698 words

Total WC: 6303 words

Notes: So yesterday's WC was actually like 5604? But I rounded it up because it was nice and neat. But that's no fun so I decided to correct it here. I'm also quite pleased with my writing today. It was more than enough to make up for my 100 less words yesterday, and I was actually close to reaching my stretch goal for today as well. It took me about an hour, though, so I'm glad I reduced my daily goal to 500 words.

I'm about to reach the part where Railyn actually gets to the school and start doing things there, so that's interesting. Also??? Some bit of tension between Railyn and Corrick??? I totally didn't intend for this to happen, because that's such a kinda gross dynamic since Corrick is almost twice Railyn's age, but there's definitely grooming underlying threads there. Not for anything romantic or sexual (although that's definitely something that fanfic writers of this piece if it ever gets published would say) but more for power? If that makes sense. Railyn definitely does not know what he just walked into.

Now I have to figure out new characters and dynamics and actually start thinking about plot a little bit because it's about to start playing into this quite a lot. Which means that my next couple of days might not make it to 500 words as I'm plotting more than writing, but we shall see.

July 3 WC: 570 words

Total WC: 6873 words

Notes: Introduced a new character! General Laroux. He's gonna be fun, and introduces a bit more to this Academy, including a darker side of the Academy. Like, why would the Academy need a General? Next part will introduce even more peeps, so this might be a bit like ughhh but we shall weather through. I'm excited to hit the 7k mark and get ever closer to the 10k mark.

I've hit a bit of a roadblock where I need to describe the actual Eternia Academy that the whole story is revolving around.

this is also one of my biggest roadblocks. literally describing anything lol

It blows my mind that you're HANDWRITING!! I know this is a thing people do when they first draft sometimes but it still blows my mind. 💜

July 4 WC: 551 words

Total WC: 7424 words

Notes: I'm still kinda ignoring needing new characters, but also kinda not! Look at me go xD but I have introduced a Professor. Professor Falmea. I've also introduced a hint of a rivalry from another student, from a stare™. You just KNOW that's going to turn into an enemies to lovers type of thing because of course it is.

July 5 WC: 224 words

Total WC: 7648 words

Notes: Okay, today my AC went out, sooooo writing in general was just not going to work. I actually wrote a bit of this on the 6th but counted it for the 5th because I was in ideation process. I'm still trying to figure out where I'd like everything to go, like, just how much I'm going to work this into a typical school story and how much I'm actually going to make it to be devious and stuff. Classes first for sure! But how much like Real Stuff™ I want to incorporate into these just regular classes lol. Expect a lower wordcount tomorrow as well.

July 6 WC: 342

Total WC: 7990 words

Notes: I'm still struggling on Describing Things that need to be described. Like, goodness when I have to actually create or make ideas, I absolutely terribly fail at it lol, like WHHHHHY. But, I think next I will go for just Railyn getting familiar with his new room. I definitely don't want to introduce his roommates just yet because goodness that's gonna completely stop all my progress.

July 7 WC: 560 words

Total WC: 8550 words

Notes: Today was a day of catch up, as it was really the first day that I was able to write without feeling like I'm dying because of the heat. Because of that, I actually wrote a bit earlier in the day that I counted towards the day before because I had ideas that I could finally implement. In reality, I probably wrote a closer to 800 words today, but yeah. I delved a bit deeper into Railyn's head today, hopefully to get more of an idea as to what kind of character this character really is. Honestly, I'm not sure if it actually worked or just made me even more confused lol, BUT ALAS THAT IS WRITING.

I have also left some tidbits onto betrayal?? only 8k words in?? you better believe it. I also have an idea that the rival-turned-lover will actually be one of Railyn's roommates, which is gonna be interesting. I still gotta figure out the other two. Also I need to note for myself now that this story right now is very male centric. It makes a bit of sense because I wanted both of my main characters (or, major characters), Railyn and Corrick, to be gay men, but that doesn't excuse the lack of female characters in the story or plot ideas so far. This will change. Perhaps one or two of the roommates can be girls? Probably one, but Idk just yet. I definitely gotta figure it out because they'll be introduced in the next day or two.

I'm gonna be combining some days together because not a lot of writing and they were rough days.

July 8 WC: 404 words

Total WC: 8956 words

Notes: I really found myself struggling with the multiple directions we could go in this. I knew vaguely what I wanted to implement, but not nearly how I wanted to implement them. So, SURPRISE! I decided to implement the roommates! Welcome Alex, Damien, and Jerous to the story. Names are all a placeholder at the moment.

July 9 WC: 174 words

Total WC: 9130 words

Notes: As I broke through the 9k word threshold, I still felt myself struggling to write and struggling with a lot of irl things as well. I managed to get a bit of personality through with Alex, the one I introduced first, but basically nothing other than that. I needed a bit of a break to get some new ideas in my mind.

July 10 WC: 0 words

Total WC: 9130 words

Notes: I did some rping that day, but other than that, I didn't really do much, and nothing for Eternia Academy. Every time I tried to start, I couldn't get myself to write anything. It was a high anxiety day for irl reasons.

July 11 WC: 0 words

Total WC: 9130 words

This was also a high anxiety day due to irl stuff. I ended up having to postpone a lot of things I was supposed to do and not do the things I wanted to do. However, I did start getting an idea in my head of my new characters. Alex is blonde, skinny, and like nice but sassy. Right now, he's my stereotypical twink gay. We'll flesh him out more.

Damien is tall, black, big shoulders, and sarcastic. I find him to be a good foil to Alex. He's pan and proud. Doesn't let anyone tell him different.

Jerous is brown, probably Indian or west asian/middle eastern. He's a bit of a know-it-all and straight to the facts kind of person, but nice and understanding once you get past that shell. He's also no nonsense. He's trans and demi-romantic. He's the one who kinda brings the other two down to earth sometimes.

July 12 WC: 523 words

Total WC: 9653 words

Notes: Okay, we've starting learning more about the roommates and delving in a bit more about them as characters and how Railyn ties into all of it. Right now, Railyn's kinda being tugged in a lot of directions and going with the flow. I'm not sure if that's the right direction for the story and I, but it's what I'm going with right now. I'm still struggling with where I want the story to go, but I'm just allowing these roommates to dictate the story at the moment, so they're probably going into town and just going to have some fun. Which is a nice relief and break for Railyn since he hasn't really had any since the story began.

Also, a fun beside: I've been writing with different colored pens to keep track of my daily progress. I started writing in June with pink and kept with that for the first few days of July but then decided to throw in red into the mix when my pink decided to quit on me for mysterious reasons (researchers have suggested an air pocket) so I switched to red. Then, the pink started to work again, so I went with red and pink. Then, the pink didn't want to work AGAIN so I used orange. Now my pink is back up and running, so I'm switching between pink, orange, and red. One day, I think on the 10th, I tried to use lime green but it didn't want to work, and still doesn't. It really ruined the vibe.

Vincian wrote:Also, a fun beside: I've been writing with different colored pens to keep track of my daily progress. I started writing in June with pink and kept with that for the first few days of July but then decided to throw in red into the mix when my pink decided to quit on me for mysterious reasons (researchers have suggested an air pocket) so I switched to red. Then, the pink started to work again, so I went with red and pink. Then, the pink didn't want to work AGAIN so I used orange. Now my pink is back up and running, so I'm switching between pink, orange, and red. One day, I think on the 10th, I tried to use lime green but it didn't want to work, and still doesn't. It really ruined the vibe.

It may have ruined the vibe, but I love this <3