My Tips For Camp Nanowrimo

By now, it is the second day of Camp Nanowrimo and therefor I felt it would be helpful for those of you participating to share some tips that I learned from my experience last year.
♥Pace yourself! Don't write too much during one point in time unless you are super into it and don't wish to stop. If it's early in the day and you've already written a lot of words and just not feeling it, come back and write later. It will improve your story and put you in a better mood.
♥Don't over edit. If you can, don't edit at all. It takes a lot of effort that should be used towards getting through the story. You have one month for 50,000 words. There is plenty of time to edit later. 
♥Talk to your cabin mates. Seriously, even if you feel as though these people are a good fit, you have to give it a shot and even if they don't become your best friends, you can get some really useful information from them and you really should take advantage of that.
♥Don't stress over your story! Yes, you should make it as good as it can be, but worrying all the time will not get your novel done. Remember, Nanowrimo is just an outline for a future novel. No one writes a bestseller in a month. If you know you are one to stress over your writing, make a quick outline of what you want to write and happen in today's words. 
♥Participate in words sprints! If you have a Twitter, I would seriously recommend you following the Nanowrimo Word Sprint page and possibly even getting their tweets sent to your phone so you know whenever a sprint is happening. For those who aren't familiar with word sprints, they are basically a random time in the day where the admin of the page will tweet out saying that a "sprint" is going on in which you write non stop for a certain amount of time. They usually only last an hour and will have a certain thing you should write about or incorporate into your story (ex: include flowers). They are super fun and satisfying to finish and really help you get your shit together.
♥Get an early start! Write at least one hundred word sometime in the morning just so you have a plan for the day. I find that I'm normally lazier in the afternoon and the days I wrote later were usually the ones that I got behind on words. If your goal is 50,000 words (which is the typical word count), you will be writing 1666 words a day and therefor being behind sucks for that means double work the next day. Since I will be in the city taking classes at FIT throughout July, and have to leave early in the morning, I plan on writing on the train to get as much done early!
♥Since it's summer, a lot of you are probably going on vacation during July and therefor will be writing less. My tip for this is to write as much as possible before you go away because lets me real here. Are you actually going to want to write all that much over vacation?

Those were just a couple things I learned throughout last year. If you have any questions about Camp Nanowrimo, you can leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer them!

Camp Nanowrimo 2014

 

   It's almost here! Finally, Camp Nanowrimo has been opened up for their 2014 July writing spree and I am more than excited to get started. I know I discussed this last year (here) but for those who aren't familiar with Camp Nanowrimo, it is in which thousands of writers come to together and spend their July writing a 50,000 word novel with only 31 days to complete it (so basically regular Nanowrimo just not in November). Though I loved participating in November, I believe Camp Nanowrimo is a much better experience. For starters, it's in the summer therefor I have so much more time to write and getting 1,650 words into my novel a day is much more pleasurable since there isn't much more responsibility to get to during the day. The cabins are also rad. Every year, writers are put into a "cabin" of eleven other writers that they get to chat and share tips with. Last year was a bit disappointing since only three of us actually participated but I was super lucky to have them in my cabin since they were such cool guys! We had some awesome discussions throughout the month and I loved getting to know them since they were such interesting people. 

   Now onto the part that I'm not so excited about. Writing. For 2013 Camp Nanowrimo, I was so prepped and ready that this year, I seem almost unprepared. My novel follows a teenager named Charlie and the complex relationship he falls into with a girl he met on the internet who calls herself Cobain Riley. I'm thinking about writing a dual point of view kind of thing so readers can get a view of what Cobain is like. In addition, I want to add bits and pieces of the conversations they have through text. I'm a little afraid to get to writing since this entire thing seems a little thrown together but I'll just go with it.

    All in all, with eighteen days until the real writing begins and six days before I get to meet all my lovely cabin mates, I am beyond excited for yet another great year of Camp Nanowrimo!