On Camp, my next book, the business, and a book that scared me...

July is Camp NaNoWriMo month, and instead of writing fiction, I decided to tackle my next non-fiction book, Take your Journal to the Next Level. It is the working title for now, but I am already partial to keeping it as the final title of the book. But writing non-fiction is not an easy thing to do for a writing challenge focused on word count, so I needed a backup story for the days where the book wasn't progressing according to schedule.

My word count target per month

It was hard since I didn't have a story I was working on, only editing. Until I got a writing prompt from a writing website I subscribe to and bam! my problem was solved. A murder mystery with a serial killer on the lose. Not sure I am ready for this story, but we will see how it develops after I finish the book and the editing of my fifth novel.

My business as a life coach for creatives will launch soon. Although the company has been going since 2015, I needed to do a few things before it was ready for full-scale activities. Watch this space! Oh, yeah, this blog is not for business, so if you are an indie author or artist, the website for the company is listed under my About page. No need to clutter this blog with that.

While July was primarily spent writing, I also finished a book that I started about a month earlier. Reading relaxes me, but it also provides insight and knowledge, both of which I constantly feel the need to attain. The book is Selfie by Will Storr. I bought the book on impulse thinking it was about our modern predilection for taking pictures of ourselves. Aside from the cover that blinded me each time I picked it up (it is intentional I think, since it is highly reflective, almost a mirror), the book is an investigative piece about of self-obsession. The author did a tremendous job to find out where it all began, where we are now and how this almost narcissistic trend is affecting us, our society and culture and how this vicious circle is feeding on itself. Scary stuff, but a book well worth the time.

One criticism I do have is the layout of the book. It is not easy to read since it was written in six parts, with no chapters. A book of this nature and well over 300 pages, is not a one-sitting kind of read, so it was a challenge to me.

So life is back on the regular daily writing target, with the other things that I have to do. I will post more updates about my current non-fiction project on Medium and the website. If you keep a journal or plan to start, or just want to see what exciting things I dug up in my research, those are the places where I bare all.

Until next time!

💜 Linzé