So, to pass the time, I decided to try out Camp NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, a challenge held every November in which writers attempt to write a 50,000 word story in 30 days. Participants sign up to the website in order to register their projects for the month and monitor their progress. I tried this back in 2016, but felt it wasn't for me.
Anyway, the people who run it also do what is known as Camp NaNoWriMo. This is a virtual writers' retreat of sorts, held in August and July. The principles are similar to the November challenge, but this time you set your own goals. November's challenge involves starting a new novel from scratch, but I used Camp NaNo to work on an existing project. Additionally, you don't have to set word count goals for the month. Instead of words, you can also choose to write a certain number of chapters or pages, or spend a certain amount of time on the project.
With this in mind, I set myself a time goal to work on my swashbuckler story, The Lady's Favour, as this mostly involved revising and editing and made it difficult to monitor word count. I set the goal as 30 hours for the month, the minimum. I also experimented with timed writing sessions, starting with an hour and then working my way down to smaller sessions. Ultimately, I submitted The Lady's Favour before I fulfilled my time goal. So, I also included blog posts and visits to my writers' group within my time, along with the first draft of a follow-up story.
I think I prefer Camp NaNoWriMo over NaNoWriMo, as it offers more flexibility. Also, July is a fairly quiet time for me. I'm at university in November and I'll have a few deadlines on April.
Anyway, I've spent the month on a virtual writers' retreat. And on the day that I won, I also received the programme for an actual writers' retreat. I think you'll know which one I mean.
Happy writing.
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