Rich Summer Digest- April NaNoWriMo Project Breakdown! || March 2021

 Hi! Hello! 

Long time no see, right? I know, I know, I say it every time, and for that, I apologize (mostly to myself). But, I wanted to talk a little bit about my April NaNoWriMo project for this year!!

I haven't ever participated in camp NaNoWriMo, although I've always thought about it. It's always fallen at either a time that worked well for me to write with no ideas or a time with lots of ideas and no time to write. This year should- key word, should- make for the perfect time for me to write. I will be done with any kind of journalistic writing for the year, and most of my classes will be in a lull. I'll be more in the last stretch of my high school career (both super exciting and kind of sad? It's weird). But, with all that being said, it makes for a much more manageable time to draft a book, unlike November. 

So without further ado, here is all about my novel for April NaNoWriMo 2021 (well, what I know about it so far)!!

PROJECT TITLE: Rich Summer Digest

PROJECTED WORD COUNT GOAL: 50,000

GENRE: YA contemporary (with some coming of age & family themes) 

VIBES: big houses, lots of money, the Hamptons, funky sunglasses, gift shops, resorts, country clubs, sunscreen, tightly tied dresses, gold bracelets, silver necklaces, beat-up cars, limousines, bright greens, whites and blues, baby blue silks, golf, vineyard vines, jet skis

LOOSE SUMMARY: 

The Argate sisters are ready for summer. 

Kat, twenty-one and the oldest, is ready to leave her family behind and never look back. She was offered a job in France starting just as the warm weather would hit. Her plan was to travel as far away from her crazy parents as possible. She needed this- especially after breaking up with her long-time boyfriend. This was her time, and she had never felt more ready. 

Margot, eighteen and the middle child, probably couldn't care less about her recent high school graduation. Was college even something she wanted to do? Not to mention what would she even major in? None of that exactly mattered to her, and she wasn't planning on starting any time soon. She wanted to get back to her normal shenanigans of swiping things that people wouldn't necessarily miss and making big bucks (or adding them to her esteemed collection). There weren't many ways to cure an adrenaline junkie, and with nobody having eyes on her, this was her best antidote. 

 Claire, sixteen and the youngest, has no idea who she is. Between her school friends, family, and herself seeing her as someone entirely different from one another lead her into a major crisis. But, she doesn't have to deal with that right now, right? She can party, kiss boys, drink and smoke, and still keep her two identities separate from one another. But what about the girl that she sees? Who is she? 

All of their separate summer plans seem to come to an unexpected halt when their parent's business goes belly up-and so does their marriage. Not only that, but Kat's job is lost, Margot is caught stealing from the wrong person, and Claire is completely shut out of her friend group due to a rumor that doesn't even make sense.  

Suddenly, the summer that seemed so simple isn't really anymore. The Argate sisters are sent to live with their disconnected and illusive rich grandmother in her Hampton home whilst everything gets sorted out. 

But there are a lot more things that the Hamptons can bring to light than they can hide. 

Kat still needs to get out, and this may be her only chance to figure it out. Margot finds the not-quite occupied vacation homes the size of a small country no big feat to her usual endeavors. And Claire is thrown into a whirlwind of mystery within the Country Club and a boldface look at figuring herself out. 

LOOSE CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS: 

Kat Juliette Argate- sagittarius with some obvious taurus in her chart. 

    Kat is still very much a mystery to me. She's very headstrong and driven. She's smart, and graduated college about a year or so early with a bachelor's degree in photo journalism/ visual communications. I think it's important to mention that Kat's lust for leaving everything behind doesn't really apply to her sisters. The Agrate sisters have always been insanely close, therefore her leaving her sisters would have probably been the most difficult thing for her to have ever done. She doesn't really believe in love, especially after what had happened with her previous boyfriend (who she thought she was going to marry). She actually gets a few jobs in the Hamptons- one of them is waiting tables at the Country Club (courtesy of her Grandmother), and the other is working at a souvenir shop near the beach. She ends up meeting Mehki, a boy with a pretty interesting past, and finds comfort in a new friendship with someone who can seem to understand her easier than anyone really has in a long time. She makes candles when she's stressed, and enjoys film cameras just as much as DSLRs. She's not very good at telling stories, although most people believe that she would be. 

Margot Theodora Argate- virgo with some aries somewhere. 

    Margot was the first character that this story had, actually. She and another character named Wes (who is the son of a famous rocker as well as multi million dollar sunglass company, and whose house she sneaks into the most), were the main focal points of the storyline, to begin with, but as usual with me, it began to expand into more characters, more focal points, etc. But nonetheless, I love Margot. She's my little artistic kleptomaniac. She's very witty, very clean, very quick on her feet, and highly intelligent- she just doesn't apply herself. She loves storytelling but finds writing to be too much work, so she paints. She'll posy characters online, and they get some likes, but that's about all. She'll draw her sisters or random people on the street. Although she's good at painting and sketching, she doesn't talk about it- it's more or less just known that Margot Argate is talented and that's that. She's never wanted to pursue it as a career, but then again Margot doesn't think much about the future for anything. She enjoys the art of planning, although it always has to do with planning some kind of break-in or scheme. She's imaginative but somehow is able to make her dreams reality rather easily. As mentioned in the summary, she likes to steal things, and the empty Hampton houses are no exception to her habits. They arrive in May, while all of the rich people with their summer homes arrive in June (or so she's told). A part of her sneak-in endeavors also come from a place of wanting more from life and pretending that she can be someone else by laying on their couch or sleeping in their beds (not as weird as it sounds, I promise she washes the sheets). Oh, and she was 100% a leash kid. 

Claire Irene Argate- leo with some definite pisces energy. 

    Claire is so lost. There's a lot of different facets to Claire that I haven't exactly tapped into completely yet, but I'm excited to do so. She hides a lot from who she needs to be, partially because she doesn't want it to be the reality. She kind of likes playing pretend (all of the Argate sisters to a certain degree do), and I just think that she wanted to continue that for as long as humanly possible. She ends up getting involved in this mystery surrounding a letter and picture she finds in the country club's bathroom, stuck under the counter. This is the first time Claire is actually driven by something that isn't for validation or peer pressure. It takes her mind off of trying to figure herself out and has her focusing on something quite interesting. Maggie, a girl who lives in the Hamptons full-time and who works at the country club, offers to help her. At home, Maggie and Claire wouldn't have ever even breathed the same air, but for some reason, it's different whenever her social self has completely stripped away and nobody is watching. Claire, contrary to what you may think, is the quietest of the Argate sisters, especially when it comes to talking about their lives. Claire keeps a lot of her thoughts private but will boast about more exterior or material things. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

    I'm pretty excited about this book!! I didn't go into depth about any other characters because until I have more on them, they aren't that important. The sisters are a very interesting dynamic that I'm excited to play around with, and they all have such interesting storylines that there are so many different sandboxes to play in! I don't play around with actual biological sibling relationships in my writing nearly enough (I do a lot of found family, which is also quite enjoyable) so I'm probably most excited to see how their relationship as the three of them grows and changes, as well as with others. Their grandmother, whom they call Nana, needs to be developed (she's pretty much a complete mystery to me LOL) but I do feel like there's a lot to her that I need to uncover. I love the Scooby-Doo type mystery that kind of just... appeared? into Claire's arc. It's so fun and I'm excited to learn more about it because as of right now, I have no idea where I want it to go. 

    ANYWAYS I'm hella excited to draft this, and I think it'll be very interesting. It's a standalone, obviously, and gives me the same kind of vibes (quirkiness-wise) to The Fear Of Falling Agaian, which I drafted in November of 2019. I enjoy the sibling bond themes, as well as self-discovery and almost the coming of age (ish?) vibes, too! I'm hoping to do some more updates about this novel as we go, but we'll see how that turns out LOL. I want to also do some April Nanowrimo vlogs, or compile it all together at the end of April for a youtube video, too! I think it would be fun to have this book's process documented someway, somehow. 

Here's the playlist and Pinterest board if you would like to check those out as well! 

I hope you're all doing well, and I also hoped you enjoyed reading a little bit about my camp nano novel :) 

much love!! xx