Thursday, June 19, 2014

Camp NaNoWriMo

I'm going to give you the link right away if you want to skip my ramblings and go sign up :)
http://campnanowrimo.org/

It's a camp. Called... NaNoWr... How do you pronounce it? (I don't exactly have a clear idea; I have a feeling everyone pronounces it their own way. lol)

So it's called Camp NaNoWriMo which stands for: National Novel Writing Month. The official "writing" month is in November, this is just a camp that you can do in the summer months of April and July.

I've never done it before, but am going to do it in July. (obviously) To put it plainly, I am super excited. Here's some facts about the program.

1. It's completely free.
Unless you want to donate or buy some cool souvenirs... You won't have to pay a dime.

2. You can choose your goal.
Want to take the brave approach and try to accomplish a 50,000 word novel? That's the default with a little over 1,600 words a day. If that is too daunting for you, make up your own goal! I'm trying for 20,000. I think that'll bring me to the end of my novel :)

3. It has awesome stats.
I don't know about you, but I'm a stat person. It's interesting to see how many page views I got on our blog a certain day or which post was the most popular. For Camp NaNoWriMo, it'll tell you three things:
 1. The word count needed each day to reach your goal.
 2. Once you update your word count each day, it recalculates the needed words. So if you fall behind a day or two, the site will tell you how many more words you'll have to add in order to catch up.
 3. What your average word count for each day was.
There are some others... But if you want to know more you'll just have to sign up :)

4. You can go to camp in the comfort of your home.
I don't love camp, but yet I don't dislike it. It's one of those things which has it's ups and downs.
Bug bites. Sunburn. Swimmers ear. (I got that last time I went. Not a pleasant experience) Scratchy beds. Cramped living spaces.
There are some downsides.
But guess what? With Camp NaNoWriMo, you don't have to go anywhere. *cheers* Sit down at your computer each day in your air conditioned house, write furiously, update your word count on the handy dandy internet, and ta-da! That's all there is too it. (granted it's easier saying it than actually doing it...)

5. Be encouraged by friends.
You'll be assigned (or invited) to a "cabin" with 11 other people. You can encourage your cabin mates through the writing journey and keep each other accountable when they start falling behind. You'll even try to reach a goal together as a cabin with your combined word amounts :) It's different with a private cabin, which is what I will be in.

So, go sign up for camp! If you have any questions, comment them below. I have never done this before, so I can't promise that I'll be able to answer everything perfectly. I get all my information from their website which is the link at the top :)

And talking about writing... Since it's coming up in 11 days I believe; I won't be doing any more writing until July. I'm taking a bit of a break so I can plan out how I will want to finish it and get my head on the right track. So that's why you won't see any word improvement when we update our word counts on Saturday :)

Have an amazing rest of the week!

- Katie

2 comments:

  1. Best benefit.....? Your moms won't miss you while you're at camp (or have to worry about you succumbing to nasty diseases like swimmer's ear)

    Good luck in your endeavor!! I'm excited to see where your plot is heading!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I might do it now!! Sounds fun! Good luck finishing you novel.

    ReplyDelete

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