Camp NaNoWriMo: July, 2015

Hey guys, Katie here. I'm posting solo this Friday, but Sarah will be writing the next entry to make up for missing out on this one. :)

It's July, which means it's time for another session of Camp NaNoWriMo! What is NaNoWriMo, you ask?

The main event of NaNoWriMo (which stands for National Novel Writing Month), takes place every November. The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in just one month. It's a massive undertaking, but I'm here to tell you from first-hand experience that it can be done! 

The Camp sessions, which occur in the months of April and July, are a little more flexible than the November event. You can set your own word count goal, and you can work on a writing project other than a novel (such as short stories, a script, or your memoir) if you so choose. Technically, you can do these things during November too, as long as you're okay with breaking the rules and thus falling into the "rebel" category.

The challenge presented by NaNoWriMo is a great incentive to move beyond simply thinking about your story idea and actually get a first draft down on paper (or in a word document). If you'd like to know more about NaNoWriMo and and why or how one participates...
Here's a link to the main website: nanowrimo.org
And the camp website: campnanowrimo.org 

For the current Camp session, Sarah and I have each set our goal at 15,000 words. This target requires an average of just 484 words per day, as compared to the 1667 average needed to complete the November goal. We like to reserve that sort of crazy all-out NaNo-ing for the main event.

My own current project (and Sarah's too, I believe) is short stories. I'm planning to write one to three of them a day, depending on the lengths of the entries in question. I chose short stories because they give me a chance to play with the multiple ideas that have been bouncing around in my head rather than being forced to pick just one. Also, I'm getting practice for outlining longer works of fiction by planning shorter ones. I don't naturally tend towards such planning, but I've found that when I don't have at least a basic outline for a novel-length story, I tend to just meander through the plot. Such an approach does not make for interesting reading or a pleasant revision process.

That pretty much sums up my personal writing objectives for this July. Sarah will discuss her own project in our next post, so stay tuned! Happy writing!