The thirty-second chapter of The Gold in the Dark is out! New chapters, complete with brilliant chapter illustrations courtesy of Ally Grosvenor, release every other Sunday at 11 AM EST (and many times earlier)! You can get started on the series with Chapter One right here or on Wattpad.

These past few weeks I’ve really upped my word count on my Beauty and the Beast and Aliens WIP–I’m finally feeling like I’m making some progress story-wise! We’re also officially past that interminable kayaking scene. 😛 A lot of the progress I’ve made is down to writing with friends virtually, since, you know, social distancing. I’ve been doing a lot of Zoom sessions with writing buddies, sometimes even multiple times a day. Over the years, I’ve found that my most effective habit for getting words in is to write with friends–we usually rotate coffee shops or sometimes write at each other’s houses, about one to three times a week for two hours or so. These are not critique sessions; it’s just butt-in-chair time with other people. So I’ve been happy to discover that virtual writing sessions are about as effective for me as in-person sessions, and it’s nice to be keeping up with all my writing friends as well.

Something that’s been another small help to me is Camp NaNoWriMo. A lot of people know about NaNo, but not necessarily about the “camps” that take place during April and July. In the camps, you get to pick your word count and you write in virtual “cabins” with other writers, to help with accountability. This year’s Camp NaNo is an afterthought for NaNoWriMo as a company, in my opinion; with the gutting of the NaNo website last year, it seems that there’s hardly any support for camp this year in terms of online functionality. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to be sorted into cabins; you have to join writing groups yourself in the forum. There also doesn’t appear to be any fun new graphics or merch for this year’s camp, different from years in the past where each camp had its own branding. I’m not really sure where NaNo is at as a company (they’re a 501(c)(3)), but I wish they had made camp a bigger priority than it seems to be. Nevertheless, I’m in a couple cabins, and we’ve been using Discord for chatting while we’re getting words in. So it’s been kinda fun… but also a letdown. Anyone else doing Camp NaNo? I’d be curious to hear other people’s opinions about the changes NaNo is making as a company.

Anyway, I’m going to wrap it up here. Have a great (and healthy) rest of your weekend, and enjoy Chapter Thirty-Two. ❤