All right, it’s time to confess. I can’t live with the secret any longer.
Sometime around 11:30 p.m. on May 31st, I decided to kick my a$$ out of its slump and get back in the writing saddle. (I may or may not tell you about my slump at some point, but all you really need to know right now is I haven’t been writing – which is pretty deadly for, you know, a writer.)
I love NaNoWriMo. I thrive on structure and goals, and NaNo feeds into my type-A personality perfectly. Camp NaNoWriMo is similar (although the prizes aren’t as good, but as I have a beef with CreateSpace’s new prize structure, I suppose neither’s prizes are all that wonderful, but I digress), in that participants sign up and attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of June.
(You can go to camp again in August too.)
Camp NaNo has been the shove I needed to get writing again. I don’t know what it is about bar graphs, and funky little dart boards, but whatever it is, they totally work for getting me to get words on the screen. I have sat at this computer every night, so far, in June and cranked out more than 1,000 words each time.
Yes, I know you need to average 1,667 words a day to reach 50,000, but as I mentioned earlier, I haven’t been writing – AT. ALL. It was all I could do to open a blank word doc and place my fingers on the keyboard. I had serious butterflies and the shakes. I needed to start writing again or go crazy, but something was holding me back.
Camp NaNo was my breakthrough solution. I’m not going to ‘win’ this month. I will not reach 50,000 words by June 30th, and that’s okay because I’ve already won. I beat the fear inside and started writing again. I’m rusty, and the stuff coming out is drivel, but with every keystroke my skills are returning. By the end of the month I will have 30,000 words (my goal is 1,000 words a day), and will be well on my way to recovering the groove I was in before the writing stopped.
I don’t know if it will work for you, but if you’re looking for that swift kick in the rear to get you back into the writing habit, you could do worse than to sign up for NaNo or one of their camps.
I’m back, and I have the neato bar graph and bullseye target over at Camp NaNo to thank for it.
C.
PS There are two others who also deserve a huge amount of credit for helping me find my way. They said what needed to be said when I needed to hear it. Thank you. xo
I knew about NaNoWriMo (participated for the first time last year) but not about the camps… I will definitely be looking into this. Thanks! Also, I found your blog by doing a google search for Becky Vinter (I write YA and just queried her, like, ten minutes ago). So, yeah… Anyway, I really like your blog and have started following it. I’ll come back in a bit and take a more thorough look around. Thank you for the writing!
Hi Heather,
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I started doing NaNoWriMo in 2009, but this was my first year trying out the camps. I didn’t win the July camp, but I’m planning on giving the August one a run for its money. How long have you been writing? Is this your first novel?
Best of luck with the querying process!
Cheers,
Cheryl.
Thanks. I am querying my first completed novel (started it in 2005) and currently working on two projects (mostly my NaNoWriMo 2011 project). I started writing in 1998 or so but didn’t take it seriously until I started up again in 2005. I have the occasional lapse in writing and loved participating last November… I need the motivation of goals and deadlines myself… it helps so much.
Best of luck in your career.
Thanks again,
Heather