It's #CampNaNoWriMo Time

In case you don't follow everything writing online, in November, there is this little thing called National Novel Writing Month where writers from around the world try to pen 50K new words of a novel in just 30 days. I am a huge fan of NaNoWriMo. In fact, It's A Wonderful Death was a 2012 success story with the first draft, all 63K words, written in 23 days. (We won't talk about the months of edits that I endured to get it ready for submission.)

But not everyone is ready to take the November challenge so the good people who put on the program came up with Camp NaNoWriMo, additional months to try to accomplish writing challenges.

April is the first session and July the second. I tried to do make a go of it in November, but honestly, it was so close to the launch that there was no way I could do it. I think I contributed all of 100 words that month.

April is here and the timing couldn't be better or worse. On the better side, I'm ready to tackle my next project. All my pre-writing is done and I "feel this story". It's practically writing itself. The worse part, which is actually not a bad thing at all, is that I leave for the RT Booklover's Convention on Monday. I will be spending a week in Las Vegas. I know. tough luck, right? Which is why I adjusted my target goal to 35K words instead of 50K.

So why am I such a big fan of these kind of events? It's highly unlikely that anything being written this fast will be ready for publication anytime soon. I mean, revisions and editing something that's written fast and dirty take forever, right? I think that's the reason why. So often my inner critic, who has a shrill, grating voice, gets in the way. But when I'm binge writing, she can barely get a word in edgewise so it's a nice fit.

The other thing I love about it is the feeling of being in the trenches with a lot of other people who are at the same point in their book journey: the beginning. I am a crazy social person and writing in isolation wrecks my creativity. But during NaNo events, I know, at any time of the day or night, I can hit up twitter and find someone, somewhere struggle to hit that target goal, too. And that brief interaction is enough to spur me on to finish.

Now, NaNoing isn't for everyone. I know a lot of writers who can't stand the idea of writing this fast, and that's completely understandable. But I like it. It fits my style and makes me stay in the story so my ENFP personality doesn't get distracted as easily.

Speaking of distraction, it's time for me get back to writing. This next book isn't going to write itself. (Although I heard there is a computer who actually wrote a book. All those movies and novels about robots taking over our jobs isn't so funny anymore.)

So go forward and BE FEARLESS in tackling what ever it is that makes you feel alive.