50,092 words for the win!

Happy news on this Wednesday: I crossed the Camp NaNoWriMo finish line last night!

I ending up writing just over 50,000 words in twenty-eight days. My project, a family history memoir, is nowhere near complete, but I'm happy to have made such a significant dent in it. My cabinmates were supportive and encouraging, and we had a lot of fun writing together. Although I've participated in NaNoWriMo many times, this was my first experience with Camp Nano. I'll definitely go camping again!

Also on the writing front this month: I bought two new books: Now Write! Nonfiction and The 3 A.M. Epiphany. I'm looking forward to reading the first one because it contains several writing exercises pertaining to memoir and creative nonfiction, which I'm certain will be helpful as I finish my Camp NaNo project and look toward revising my own memoir. The second book looks great as well. Its focus is fiction, which I'm eager to start writing once again. I have to—those voices in my head need to get out!

So that's been my month in a nutshell—"camping" and reading. How was your August? Did you read anything great? Do a lot of writing? What's been keeping you busy?

Saying thank you isn't enough

I'm finally back!

Image courtesy of sundesigns, rgbstock.com

It was a difficult few weeks, but I'm happy to say that everything turned out much, much better than I could have expected. I don't have enough words for how grateful I am for your comments, thoughts, e-mails, and prayers. It meant so much to know that others cared and were thinking of me, and I know it was that—and faith—that made the situation easier to get through. Thank you so much.

I'm happy to be back on my blog, and I'm looking forward to posting again—it's been a while! However, for a couple of reasons, I'm going to be easing my way back to daily blogging. As some of you probably know, my son will be starting kindergarten in the fall. He'll be attending all day, every day, which of course is something this mom isn't really ready to think about, much less deal with! (I'll probably cry for days.) I had wanted to spend the summer doing fun things with him and his little sister, but several situations and events prevented me from doing as much with them as I would have liked. There's a little over a month left until school starts, so my plan is to spend more time doing things with the kids, which will, sadly, leave me with a little less time for blogging.

I'm also participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this month. I'm using it to jump-start my memoir project, which I've put on the back burner for far too long. I'll spend part of the month transcribing interview notes and conducting more interviews (and then transcribing those as well). Once I see what I have to work with, I hope to get a good start on putting it all together. This project has been pretty daunting, but I'm hoping that Camp NaNo will help give me the momentum I need.

So although I may not post every day this month—(or maybe I will; who knows what the weeks will hold?)—I still plan on posting several times a week. I love blogging—it's one of my favorite outlets—and I love connecting with other people through their blogs. I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you!

Regardless of what happens with my posting this month, I'll be back full force once life settles down a little in the fall. Thank you for being patient with me and for everything you did these past several weeks. I appreciate it all more than I can say.

(And it definitely feels good to be writing again!)