Young Writers Society

CAMP NANO TIME

Haha I've actually never done this? I'm going to go like... uni elective style on this and write ten goals and hold myself accountable for maybe 3-5 of them. I'm traveling for about half the month, so... good luck to me?

Choices:

1. Write 500 words of any piece (prioritizing Gal Paladins) every day not on travel.
2. Finish chapter-by-chapter outline of Gal Paladins
3. Finish chapter-by-chapter outline of Loosely Lawful WIP
4. Finish rough outline of War Waged Weekly WIP
5. Sections-and-rough-page-counts outline of Imaginary Factors (graphic novel!)
6. Character reference pages and style examples for Imaginary Factors (graphic novel!)
7. Total word count for the month of at least 15k (any piece)
8. Publish on YWS up to Gal Paladins -8 (currently writing -5 and 6)
9. Finish Squills column proposal and literary section application
10. The Scrambling of San Angelo overhaul planning (transitioning to multi-media and rearranging plot, timeline, and framing)

Anyway. If anyone has thoughts on what to choose, I welcome some input haha. Also, here's a brief overview of each of those titles.

Gal Paladins

A horrible experimental piece that people (Spearmint. I mostly mean Spearmint) like for some reason, which gives me great motivation. Time goes both forward and backward. It's about magical girls, and magical girl tropes, and what happens when the Final Battle is over. I might commit a crime while I write this, as it keeps me awake at night, and I have to be awake for work at five-thirty am.

Loosely Lawful

Because I don't play enough DnD, I started this extremely raunchy tale about a law school dropout who becomes an acolyte of the goddess of law and justice; her lacrosse bro bestie; a frustratingly perfect fish girl; the Rich Boy(tm) saddled with student debt due to familial exile; and a gender-fluid shape-shifter AKA the most annoying rival ever. It's also about the gig economy and environmental conservation and ethical business practice? I don't know what I'm doing.

War Waged Weekly

I have this fantasy where my mother sets me up with my future spouse, but she and my father are like the most unattainable love match ever, so it will never happen. Thus, here is the story of Peony Tian and the weekly barrage of people she goes on dates with to get her mother off her back about her extremely non-existent love life. She's some kind of Ace. One of her housemates has to teach her Fashion.

Imaginary Factors

This started life as a short story here on YWS called 3+i. Then I rewrote it? Maybe? And then I sat on it for four years. Then the guy who inspired it in the first place reached back out to me and now annoys me with anime recs in genres he knows I hate. I don't even know how he finds time for anime because he's in medical school??? So I got in the mood to revamp it, and because of the Math I figured it might work better as a graphic novel. I mean... I draw sometimes...

Squills

Surely you know.

The Scrambling of San Angelo

I probably need to not look at this for six months but it's on the list because I don't know what to do. This was my LMS project which I eventually decided I hated because I'd had such a great time writing this bizarre, multi-media planning document, and then tried to write the thing like a normal novel, which was the Incorrect Choice. It's about an entire city and community? I don't know what I was thinking. It was LMS, so I probably wasn't tbh.

Anyway. Thoughts?

<3

See, this is the spirit of Camp and I'm here for it. Why work on one thing when you could work on ten things?! Who knows what the vibes will be in July and I feel like you'll be prepared for absolutely anything! I also love how different all of your projects are (which probably makes it easier to bounce around!!)

Okay, my favorite summaries are Loosely Lawful and Imaginary Factors, but all seem fun...hmmm.

I'm back from traveling! Or, well. The first of my July travels. I'm packing up for the next one on Monday haha.

I'm going to narrow myself down to five official goals... and if I happen to be lucky enough to catch any others, then good for me.

So:

1. 500 words per day, of any piece, for each day not on travel
2. Finish chapter-by-chapter of Loosely Lawful
3. Finish Squills column proposal
4. Publish Gal Paladins up to -7 (if it even ends up being called -7) on YWS
5. Finish rough outline of War Waged Weekly

It's 6:30 pm now... so I'm going to try for my daily 500 today. Haha. Good job to everyone who has already started!!

I've honestly been so excited for an update on all of this!!

Well friends... travel really wore me out. I thiiiink I will get through goals 2 and 5. Number 1 is already somewhere in the compost bin rotting away, and 4 would be a dream. 3 is like... a stretch goal.

But California was pleasant and I learned a lot since I was there for a software/technology conference.

Specifically, I was there for the esri user conference, which was terrifyingly large. It's apparently always the week before San Diego Comic Con so if the stars align next year I may try to catch the first day of that as well.

And while I was technically at the conference for professional reasons, I had the horrible idea that the Scrambling of San Angelo might be extremely cool as an interactive GIS web experience. I also think someone should throw me into a lake before I get ahead myself.