Well, that was a less successful camp than I'd hoped for. It didn't even really start well. The spirit was willing, the body was weak. Or something. I never really liked camping anyway.
However, what I would consider reasonably productive procrastination happened instead. Yet more Planning. And attempts at Creative Writing exercises. And there was considerably more thinking about stories and writing than there has been of late.
Even the planning has been better. Turns out a lot of the notes I've been making while I haven't been writing have been, um, rewrites of previous notes. So not a lot of actual, new, planning has really happened for a while. Until now.
Perhaps I'll manage to get it properly together for another attempt at NaNoWriMo in November. If I'm not too bogged down with yet more reading and studies. Or swamped with Christmas cards (or gifts) I need to make.
I will, though, take the small wins. I went camping at the last minute without proper planning (which is always important for camping in general, but more especially so when there's a small child involved), but in doing so, I did actually spend a lot more of this month thinking about the stories in my head than I had been previously. And now I feel more – not necessarily confident, but directed. I know where I'm going with it, I think, and I've finally started filling in the bits which were previously eluding me and causing me to tinker around the edges instead of getting on with it.
And I'm working out the best times to have a go at writing, and finding a good writing rhythm. It's not about tripping over the pram in the hallway, but making sure it's away as tidily as possible so you can get around it. Or putting the baby in it while you work. Especially when baby's no longer immobile.
I had thought that the Creative Writing exercises (from an OU workbook) might help with the writing. I'm in two minds as to whether they do. At any rate, I decided against signing up for a Creative Writing course now that my Early Modern History one has ended. Instead, I've opted for a Literature course, so I've been reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in preparation. I'm not sure if it was the bitty way in which I read it, or reading it for a few minutes before falling asleep, or reading it on my Kindle, or just the book in general, but I don't really remember much of what I read. I shall have to try again with a paper copy, pen in hand to scribble all over it.
So, not the best camp I've ever done – it was rubbish weather, to be fair – but also not the worst. Onwards and upwards!
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