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Well, at least I’ve joined camp even if I hadn’t joined a cabin or done more than choose my stories and do one outline…

Let’s start at the beginning: on Monday I found out about a chance to do something good with my writing for the second half of 2017. Only, I have so many things on my plate I’m not even sure if I have the time to do it. (Let’s not talk about the remodelling and all the dust that’s driving me nuts.)

There’s a great opportunity for me to get an anthology of my work published (or a novella, either way there’s only 120 pages). It includes all publishing costs, except for proofreading and marketing. It’s a competition, of course. And in Afrikaans. Honestly, in the last couple of months I’ve only written one short story a month in my mother tongue. Sometimes it’s hard to switch languages.

I’ve decided to take on this challenge – it runs until the start of October – not just to win this publishing prize (or the writing course prize for second place), but also to test out my skills. I’m going to do a couple of fairy tale rewritings (Grimm fairy tales to be precise), dark fantasy, in Afrikaans. Though I usually use folklore in my writing, I haven’t done a fairy tale rewriting since my awesome retelling of Cinderella as Just Deserts.

I chose ten of my favourite Grimm folktales (including Cinderella) to rewrite with Faeries and the heavy price magic exacts. Signing up for camp means that there’s a way for me to be accountable (and get it done in a month). I think 20000 words will do it… Though, if the stories cannot fill 120 pages I’ll have to write more. *sigh*

Did I mention I also have to write a story from scratch for an anthology? (Yes, yes I can’t seem to say “no” to opportunities at the moment.)  And I haven’t finished rewriting my novel, so when am I going to watch the last half of season 5 of “Arrow”? Oh, rewards thou art out of reach.

You’re probably curious about which stories I chose. Well, here they are:

Fitcher’s Bird

Briar Rose (The Sleeping Beauty)

Rapunzel

The Seven Ravens

The Bremen Town Musicians

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces)

The Blue Light

Rumpelstiltskin

Hans My Hedgehog

Cinderella

Okay, so I have other favourites too, but these ten stood out as just waiting for a retelling by moi.

I’m not even sure if there’s going to be a thematic link between them when I’m done, but I have three weeks to write them and figure that out. Thankfully I can write them in my pretty notebook and type them in the dark of night when all is quiet and the dust has settled…

What about you: do you have any crazy writing plans for July? Are you taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo? Do you use a reward system? Which Brothers Grimm folktale is your favourite?

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