Camp NaNoWrimo July 2020: Lessons Learned and Looking Ahead

This entry is well over due but all will be explained. July finished some time ago and with it the second round  of Camp NaNoWrimo…and I almost made it through! It really was a fun experience, specially when this year I took part of group activities like write-ins and meetings. But as with all these activities, it has helped me learn more about how I work in general. So, how did I do in Camp NaNoWriMo? How will this change how I do NaNoWriMo in November? Let’s figure that out.

The Good

So the good things I learned! For one, I had mentioned I was not going to keep to just one story and this was definitely something I will be now be making my “official” NaNo project. One of the issues I would have with previous tries was that at some point I might run out steam. Not for any lack of liking a story, but it’s part of being what is known among writing circles as a “Pantser” (something to maybe expand on another post) meaning I don’t do extremely detailed outlines. This meant that at times I would hit some plot walls or bumps and my inspiration at times would fall down, putting me behind in my word-count and activating my “all or nothing” way of thinking and kind of ruin my drive.

Since for Camp NaNo I did not limit to one project it meant that when I was feeling the familiar creep of “I need to stop and plan” for one project, I would simply count the words of another project I had more inspiration. Maybe the historical romance was giving me trouble over something I needed to research so I would jump to work on the pseudo scifi or the fanfics. The same worked in reverse. So that kept my days being relatively productive when it came to word count and since I had my count it also did not make me feel bad about stopping on a story to research or re-plan. It doesn’t feel like time wasted for the challenge.

The biggest change was that this time, I wasn’t as active in the forums…but I was in an actual writing group! Made up of writers from Puerto Rico who do the challenge and wanted to try and do the sort of activities NaNoWriMo suggests (Write-ins, sprints, discussions groups) even if we are all socially distancing, I took a chance and joined in. Reader it was great. Since there is a few of us, at different points in our writing journeys, with different interests and different views on the industry and what we want to do in it, it made for very good conversation and fun feedback. The combination of these two things made it so not only was I more productive, but the challenge felt more like fun and less like a writing chore. that being said…

the Bad

I still have not fully gotten to a set goal of words. This last Camp NaNoWrimo was the closest I have gone being behind by just around 5,000 words! But I was not able to get all my days on goal. I had days when I barely broke the 100 word mark. Then there were days when I tried to make up the slack and would push well beyond the 1,000 word count and the last day I attempted a 10k day but fell short…at about half over 6k words. Why do I say this is the bad? Because trying to reach these goals was completely exhausting.

This is not a bad thing per se, after all its supposed to be work and even fun work can be tiring. But because I was trying to reach a specific number and not even giving myself any excuse, plus working and all that, it meant that by August I was drained creatively. Even writing this blog post felt like it was something I could not get to doing. August and most of September has been just me trying to get back into that routine of producing every day. This is why it’s bad, its been almost 2 months of writing even the smallest bit feels like a chore and if this was in a more work oriented setting, rushing to a huge chunk of writing might not be as good as say maybe allowing days of less writing if it means more constant production.

the NaNowrimo

How am I going to adapt for the future? The official NaNoWrimo starts in November and the goal for that one is 50k words. Considering my Camp NaNoWrimo goal was 30k…you see why I am reconsidering things. On previous years my end was to just form the habit of writing. By now I don’t have that hard a time doing that at least when it comes to more personal writing or planing. So I tried to focus on getting a specific amount of words to get a time line of when something would be finished (at least a first draft). Now I am not saying that’s not a good idea if I was working with specific deadlines. But maybe I am being a bit too hard on myself. So in this Camp NaNoWrimo what I learned was that if I am looking at productivity, maybe what I am producing is not what matters.

What am I planning to do different this next November? For one, I will actually do #Preptober, where people get together in a similar way to NaNoWrimo to…well…prep for NaNoWrimo. I mentioned before that I consider myself a pantser, so not having a good base or prep has probably been part of why I loose steam. I am focusing on prep for one idea but I am also noting down other details I might get for other things. As with Camp NaNo I wont be holding myself to only one project, but I am going to focus mostly on originals. I wont completely push off fanfiction, sometimes you need that break. But I will try to keep focused on my original works. And more importantly, I will again be tackling this with the writing group. As in my case a few of the others also got hit with that complete exhaustion so we are planning for ways to be able to keep each other going without the burnout. We are all discussing our prepping plans and it really makes a difference to have a community to do this with.

And as before, I am going to be more active here as well. While in Camp NaNo I did not count my words for this blog…I might be a bit easier to myself this time around and maybe consider counting them as bonus to the day’s word counts when I work on this. Either way, you will see more here. I am hoping to actually be more vocal about it around in social media so…I will let you know how that goes too! For now, it just feels good to start getting things going again in my head. Hopefully NaNoWrimo wont destroy me this time around!