It's been a while since I've written a full, proper blog post. I mean, a long, long time. And I haven't kept to my daily schedule since March, when a combination of London and theatre gave me too much else to focus on. Combine that with the worries about getting into the course I applied for - and thank God I actually got into it, and will begin in September - and I shut down slightly.
Lately, though - as in the past few days - I've been planning a come back. I've been planning to go into overdrive. Next month, I'm planning to do a lot online. Let's just break it down a bit. Every day in July, I want to:
- Post a blog post here
- Post a poem or story on Paragraverse
- Upload a video blog on my YouTube channel
This, and here's the catch, is while I'm writing a book for Camp NaNoWriMo. A book I haven't finished planning. So that'll be fun.
The way it's going to break down is that the blog posts will be written in advance, more or less. I've already scheduled the first three at the writing of this. They're short, and form a sort of running interview with my myself. Minus the questions. I'm insane, but I'm not ask myself questions for a month insane.
The poems are going to be either (a) something that came to me in a moment of pure inspiration or (b) based off something I found in my research for my Camp NaNoWriMo novel. The stories, which will appear every Friday on ParagraVerse, are re-posts of the original Modern Irish Myth flash stories. I made the decision recently to remove that site completely, when it became apparent that I was neither posting new material to the site, or sending anyone to it.
The video blogs are going to be my attempt to capture the month of writing on camera. Largely they'll focus on the novel, and how my progress is going. I imagine it's going to be a very stressful, very busy month, and it's all down to one other, as-yet-unmentioned thing: I'm starting a newsletter, and I want to encourage people to sign up to it. I still need to work out the kinks before I even share a sign-up page (or, you know, even begin the newsletter process of it - I have one thing sorted out, but after that... let's just say I have a lot to do.)
Starting the newsletter also requires me to re-start my Sunday articles. So I have to write them every week. And this is the kicker - while making sure I have a new poem, blog post and video going up on a daily basis, while directing people to my sign up sheet and while posting my Sunday articles - I'm setting a target of 75,000 words for my Camp NaNoWriMo challenge.
And did I mention I haven't finished planning it yet?
This is the month that might kill me, and I honestly can't wait to see how I do. I have my head in the game. I love the idea for the book. I know what I want to do with this book when it's done. I know that I can write 2,500 words per day on average. (Case in point: Balor Reborn.)
I know I'll be exhausted. I know I'll have to put in a lot of hours. I know it'll mean not watching television boxsets, or sitting down to rewatch movies for no reason. I know it'll mean not aimlessly walking around the city centre just to get out of the house. I know it'll mean not playing Skyrim for the tenth time and getting nowhere in it.
I know all of that, and I still want to do this. I want to write this book, and I want to share these blog posts, and the videos, and the poems. I'm all about the big challenges to myself. They're how I figure out my strengths and weaknesses, and that's how I grow as a person.
This Tuesday, it all begins.
