Exile: the Camp NANOWRIMO project, The Conclusion

It's done. It came out to 61,516 words. No small feat. I opened it 56 times in the past 23 days and the total editing time came to 22 hours, 17 minutes. About an hour a day.

Is this the best novel I've ever written? No. Was it the most fun? No, not really. I did it, and I was compelled to do it.

And I think if it weren't for Camp NaNoWriMo, I would not have written this. I would not have rewritten a 30 year old novel. And as it stands, I still haven't read the old one.

Hell, if I'm honest, I may never read this one.

Exile: the Camp NANOWRIMO project, Part 3

Realizing the patterns

When I started Camp NaNoWriMo a mere 17 days ago, all I knew was that I wanted to rewrite the remains of a 30 year old project. Incidentally, I have not read this project despite being 48,000 words into the rewrite. I had only planned on writing 50,000 words, so it seems as if I'm almost done. I think I still have at least 10,000 to go. It seems this story is worth more than I thought it was originally worth.

At the time that I wrote the initial story, the spring and summer of 1993, I was in flux. I worked at a picture framing franchise, and I lived in Boulder. I moved from Boulder to Denver and I also stopped working at the frame shop to work at the Colorado Department of Health. I also stopped attending classes at Araphoe Community College and I started at Metro State. It was a time of tremendous change. I so seldom think about that time in my life. I have lost all contact with the people I knew then, and I don't go to any of the neighborhoods that I lived or worked in at that time. Plus 30 years is a long time.

Exile: the Camp NANOWRIMO project, Part 2

The Half-way Point

This is the 13^th NaNoWriMo event that I've participated in. I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on it, at least in my own way.

What I'm finding now, ten days into it is that I've somehow compartmentalized this activity. I mean, I work on it for an hour in the evenings, and yes, I do time it. I can get anywhere from 2,000 to 2,300 words down in an hour. In a way, this project is no different from the other projects I've done. I mean, I've worked on this one in the same way I've worked on previous ones. And I've noticed in the last few that I've done, I am much more focused when I'm working, and I tend to not think about it when I'm not working. And like anything else in life, the more you do it, the better you get at doing it.

Exile: the Camp NANOWRIMO project, Part 1

It stands out in my memory as the first time I went into a store specifically to buy a notebook for a specific purpose. I was driving from Boulder to Littleton. It's a long drive. I took HWY 93 out of Boulder to Golden. In Golden, I got on 6^th, and then took a small jog to Colfax staying there briefly. I went through Morrison, got on C470 to Bowles, maybe, I can't really remember. All I know is that I lived in Boulder and I worked in Littleton. It was on this long drive that I first conceived of a story that consumed the whole drive. When I got to work, a franchised picture framing outfit in a strip mall, I went into the Kmart next door and bought a notebook. It was a cloudy day, I remember that much. It was the spring, late April or early May 1993.

I can't remember much more about all of it. What happened was that I started to write this story in a spiral notebook since this was still three years before I discovered the composition notebook. Shortly after I began to write this story, I left the frame shop and started working at the Health Department. I wrote on this story at work, if I can admit to it. I wrote a lot during the two years I worked a the Department of Health. It was a very boring job and no one seemed to check up on me. I loved writing there because it was without distraction and I really felt like I was getting away with something. And the story I began while on a drive from Boulder to Littleton, I later named The Exile and for years I considered it a novel.