Postcards From Camp: Everybody Pants Now

Hello, all!

It’s me again. Your friendly (well, maybe not friendly, per say. Maybe more semi-tolerant, so long as you don’t do anything annoying, or make too much noise, or root for the Yankees, or anything like that…) neighborhood Wrimo, coming at you with another exciting installment of Postcards From Camp.

Last week, I talked about how I have no idea what I’m actually doing, which I’m sure came as a great surprise, given how I’m, like, universally known for always knowing exactly what I’m doing. But the theme of the month is What If, which means I’m literally just saying, “What could happen? What’s one thing that could happen?” and then writing that scene.

There’s no plan. There’s no cohesive story. It’s just me writing some random scene until I get stuck on it, and then I start writing another one.

In other words, I am totally pantsing this month.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been a complete pantser. I’ve been a plotter in the past, and lately, I’ve been more of a plantser, but I haven’t done any real pantsing for years. Maybe even decades.

And here’s the thing…

I HATE WRITING BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS.

I want a plan. I want a storyboard. I keep looking at my big, empty wall, thinking about how much I’d like to put a storyboard on it but there would be nothing to put up on a wall because I have nothing with which to build a storyboard. I mean, I have, quite possibly, more Post-it notes than any one person would ever need to have, so I could physically build a storyboard, but it would be comprised of nothing but blank Post-it notes, which kind of makes me think I don’t need to build a board at all.

My hope is that somewhere, at some point, during all the pantsing, the actual story as it’s meant to be told will somehow reveal itself—that I’ll write one of these “What if” scenes, and it’ll just feel right, and I’ll be sitting at my desk being all…

Which could happen. It hasn’t happened yet, but it still could. Of course, it’s equally likely that absolutely nothing will come out of this month. Nothing, I guess, being a relative term. Knowing ways not to write this series can still technically count as progress.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it.

For those of you keeping score at home, here are the numbers as they currently stand:

Camp Stats

Word count goal: 20,000

Where the WC should be: 7,742

Where the WC actually is: 9,753

Number of words to go: 10,247

WIP receiving the most WC love: Full Circle (The Experiment Edition)

Next week, I’ll be out of town, so I’m sorry to report there will be no Camp update. There may or may not be one the following week. It’ll depend on how I feel and if I have something to report once I get back into town. So, once again, it may well be that the next Camp update will be the end of the month recap. A development, I’m certain, which breaks your hearts.

But, as always, thank you for stopping by. It’s much appreciated.

Be safe and well, all.

P.S….If anyone gets the reference I’m making in the title of this post, I will be super impressed and will immediately bow down to you, Wayne’s World-style.