So, you’re probably familiar with the National Novel Writing Month, known affectionately as Nanowrimo, that glorious program where millions of aspiring writers race to write a 50k word novel in the month of November. I’ve participated for years, and have crossed the finish line three times. The first became my book Haunted, the second we shall never speak of again, and the third, Crisis, will be a book (probably book 3) in the Haunted series.
What you might not be aware of, though, is that the Nano folks also run a program called Camp Nanowrimo, two sessions (March and July) where you set your own word count of at least 5k words, on any kind of project (novel, play, collection of short stories, dissertation…), either pick or are assigned “cabin mates” to encourage and be encouraged by, and then race to finish your word count by the end of the month.
I’m signed up for July, with a goal of 50k words, to write book 2 in the Haunted series, tentatively titled Committed. I’m excited – and a little scared – to be throwing myself completely into writing this novel. I enjoy spending time with my characters, and enjoy writing their adventures. That said, there’s a lot of pressure to be perfect, which is one thing I’m hoping to be able to leave behind by doing Camp Nano. One of the philosophies of the Nanowrimo program is that you shut off your internal editor and just write. Screw quality, you’re going for quantity. You allow yourself to write crap if that’s what it takes to get to your daily 2k. The secret is, of course, that writing fearlessly is how you get quality. That sometimes you have to write through the crap to get the gold. And Nano, in any form, allows you to do just that.
Of course, writing 2k words a day will leave me little time for things like, say, my thrice weekly essay-length blog posts. So my plan is to post nifty pics on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Things I find cool, or exciting, or weird. Probably a lot of weird. I like weird. The usual posts will return in August.
Wish me luck!
Various and Sundry 