Last July I won Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time ever. Going into Camp at the beginning of last month, I felt the weight of that victory on my shoulders. I’d finally won once. If I didn’t do it again, I’d be sliding backward.

Looking back over the past month I think I hoped for too much. I’ve lost Camp NaNoWriMo a lot more times than I’ve won.

I set my goal at 10,000 new words on my 3rd draft of The Dreams. I knew it would be a stretch compared to my word counts from recent months, but I really thought I could reach it with a little extra motivation.

It turns out I couldn’t stretch my energy and motivation that far.

At the end of the month I’d written 4,049 words. That’s less than half of what I’d wanted to write. I’m a little disappointed in myself. The past 14 months or so have been absolutely awful for so many reasons so I don’t think anyone can expect to maintain the focus and drive to do better than they did before the pandemic. That said, I’m still going to beat myself up over this. I can do better.

There were so many factors in play over the course of the month, I don’t think I could begin to pin down the main reason I failed to reach my goal. There’s just too much to worry about and not enough keeping me in a routine.

Hopefully things will be better for me in July.

Did you participate in Camp NaNoWriMo last month? Were you able to reach your goal?