Why Is Camp So Much Harder Than November?

Last year, I put it down to busy-ness and trying to rewrite without any direction. This year, all the factors were in my favour -- I have time, I have drive, I have a story that I'm excited to write... But my god! This month is *hard*. 

It's partly due to the chaotic start, perhaps -- although, tbh, I did my most productive days during that time -- and it could be that my head is still firmly fixed in The Moon Path, but if they're to play any part in it all, it'll only be minimally. 

The fact of the matter is, I'm trying to treat April Camp like November NaNo and it simply isn't. All around me, everyone's doing different things and working towards different goals and -- whilst the social aspect of Camp is brilliant -- it lacks the cohesion that is so driving during November. I love the competitiveness of the Cabin, but we have word-goal from anything between 50 to 500k, with only a couple of people doing anything similar to me. We're doing super well overall, but it's just *different*. If I do July, I'm going to stick to revision rather than doing another first-draft. I'm still not quite sure how to measure the progress of an edit, but Camp needs to have a different purpose to November. 

I'm struggling to really connect with my story too. I love exploring the lives of these characters, but that's all it is -- an exploration. It isn't cohesive. There isn't a beginning/middle/end. I started too early and I'm rushing too much and I just don't *care* as much as I usually do.

It's frustrating, but it's interesting. I know I'm going to win by hitting my word-goal, but it's not going to feel like a proper NaNoWriMo Victory. But, then again, in a way it will be a victory because I'll have perservered and pushed through some impossibly hard days, and something is always better than nothing. 

A couple of days ago, I got Moon Path: Draft 3 printed up and spiral bound at Office Max ($15 for 123 pages!) so I'm rewarding myself for getting my words in with a few pages of editing. It's great seeing it all spread out in frot of me and just take a pencil to it and work through the issues (soooo many issues!) I think it's going to turn out well :)