NaNoWriMo in November is the challenge to write a draft of a novel in a month. Lots of people have done it and communities have sprang up to talk about how to prepare for the challenge, how to do the challenge, and how to join with other people to do it.
Camp Nano, in April and July, is a similar challenge but instead of writing a novel in a month (because face it, some people just can’t, whether because for example, they have a job and a toddler, or because writing 2,000 words a day doesn’t work for them) the writer sets their own goals. The goals usually involve a daily practice.
Is it a good idea? Depends.
Camp Nano has some really cool aspects.
- Community. It’s easy to find people setting goals and supporting each other. It’s a giant group effort and humans a social animals. It’s why some of us care about our local sports team, even though there is rarely a moral difference between Manchester United and Real Madrid. We thrive on connection.
- Set, clear goals: Setting goals is often a good idea. A goal means that progress is measurable—either you’re meeting goals or you aren’t.
- The commitment can make someone write and as they write, they can learn about what works and what doesn’t work for them, not only in their writing technique but also in how they write—better at night or better to get up at 5:00am before work and write then?
- Discovering that it’s possible to write and hit a goal! Four short stories in a month, or 20,000 wds in a month! It can teach the lazy and recalcitrant brain that it’s really possible to write.
Camp Nano Drawbacks
- Setting up an artificial schedule and sticking to it for a month can be a little like a crash diet. It’s unrealistic, and if it doesn’t fit your life, it can create unsustainable habits. Just as a 1200 calories a day diet is a bad idea, thinking that writing ‘x’ number of words a day (or whatever your goal is) is ‘the right thing to do’ can lead to burn out and a belief that if those goals aren’t hit, it’ means that you’ll never be a writer.
- Life is complicated, and predicting what someone is going to be able to do in three weeks is a bit of a crap shoot. Remember March of 2020? The world has a way of reducing plans to rubble.
Camp Nano and NaNoWriMo might be just the thing someone needs. If you want to do them:
- Take control. Figure out what you want from the experience, and set expectations accordingly. Even if you’re doing NaNoWriMo you don’t have to write 50,000 words. Set your own goals.
- Be thoughtful about balancing commitment and flexibility. If the goal is to write a publishable novel, well, writing fast may mean not writing well. The work of revising the novel may be much harder if 75% of the draft has to be pitched.
- Think about what you want.
Camp Nano is a great thing for a lot of writers.
Set goals that are easy, you can always do more, but you’re going to feel shitty if you do less. And use it for who you are, where you are, and getting to your own goals.