Camping - Author Style

For those of you that don't know and those of you that care: the same people who bring authors/writers/people-who-love-a-challengers National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) also bring us Camp NaNo. So for an extra two months out of the year (April and July this year) we can enjoy the insanity that comes with meeting a word goal in 30/31 days.

Camp NaNo is a bit more relaxed than NaNo. You can set your own word goals instead of going with the 50K that comes during the NaNo event. Because the two camps are in the summer there are less people on the forums BUT you're placed in a cabin with people who are (supposed) to be participating.

I've lucked out in both April and July and gotten great people in both cabins. Some aren't so lucky and get people who either don't talk or disappear for unknown reasons. The cabins are a special camp feature: we have a chat feature so depending on time zones we can talk to people in real time about writing instead of having to wait for the forums.

Last camp I worked on Lies and probably had my cabin-mates wondering what the heck I was on with the questions about gender and what not. They were exceptionally helpful and we met our overall goal of 225K. My goal was 75K which I think I hit in the third week. My memory sucks.

This camp I'm working on Testing Grounds a sci-fi novel set in and about 2013 where aliens attack earth under the guise that they want to help us. It'll be explained further in a later blog. This month I set my goal at 50K and by the end of the day (July 9th) I'll have it completed. The fun part is that our cabin goal is 150K and with another cabin mate at 30K our cabin only has to write 3 words a day to complete the overall goal. I figure by the middle of the week or the beginning of next week, we'll have hit 150K because we're awesome like that.

NaNo and the two Camps are not only fun challenges but are also great motivation. I don't need anything to keep me writing but it is nice to take a break sometimes, go to either the Camp Chat or the forums and talk to fellow writers. The months outside of Camp and NaNo are pretty stagnate in talking to other writers as I've never really clicked with writing forums outside NaNo. I know there are a lot out there but I can't get into them like I can with the NaNo forums.

Anyway, it's always good to have a fellow writer (or few dozen) to talk to when you run into a problem in your writing. It's nice to know that out there, somewhere, another writer might be having the same issue. It's good to know you're not the only crazy one.

I plan to post updates about Camp NaNo progress but we all know that I'm more pantser than a planner so, yeah. Until next time: don't put your entire marshmallow into the fire unless you like flinging a flaming ball of goo around and enjoy the taste of burnt goo.