I joined Camp NaNoWriMo 2023 — Did I win?
CAMP NANOWRIMO JULY EDITION 2023
I’ve had a NaNoWriMo account for years now, and although I had used it in 2021 and 2022 (still years after creating an account), I only ever used it for a way to create off-season projects to keep myself accountable when I was in a thorough motivation block. However, this year I finally decided to do the challenge.
Speaking of having accounts for ages and never using them, I created this Medium account back in 2017 when I was still in sixth grade. Everyone in the Middle Years section had to make an account here, and dabble in the creative expression of blogging. I was actually excited by the idea then and have been to this day, but since I didn’t (believe) I had anything valuable to share, I never posted it again since my first article. I read over it though, & although the quality of the art is, of course, terrible, I love the idea of using this blog from now on for documentation of my creative processes since I do a lot of that.
The backstory
So, I’ve had my fantasy WIP for a good two and a half years now, since February 2021. 2021 was simply me exploring the novel, and although I hold it dear to me, it really is full of cliches and poor craftmanship. In Jan 2022, I had started again and spent the first 7 months on a story elements document and I’d then spent the next while of 2022 outlining it until September, when I dropped it in favour of studying for my final high school year.
The Motive
My outlining process is very intense and elaborate compared to that of the writers I’ve seen who outline — you could almost call it first-drafting except for the omission of dialogue and proper prose. Anyway, since November I had been trying to work on the outline but it honestly became miserable to look at.
I’d gotten stuck on a few chapters and no matter how much I tried to think of remedies, it was still slow moving. Having to study relentlessly for the Leaving Certificate (final board exams in Ireland) crushed me, but I longed for the revitalisation of my story I couldn’t spend a day without thinking on. I made up my mind.
After my examinations, I would spend my whole vacation month of July on the one thing I was restricted from doing during my days of study: hammer out my novel’s outline to my heart’s content. And what better way to do it in this month than to join in with thousands of other writers in Camp Nano — July edition?
The Goal
In the traditional NaNoWriMo that takes place in November, the aim for all writers is to churn out 50,000 words for their first draft. In Camp, we set the goal to suit our own needs, so here is what I chose:
“Write 25 words”
I’d outline 25 scenes this month, basically, and each time I outlined a scene, I would add that to my word count tracker. I was quite terrified of setting so many scenes for me to outline, as I’m quite used to dawdling on one scene for as long as I like, and I didn’t think I was creative enough to get so much done.
Method
Usually, I outline my story in a big document called CONTRACT OUTLINE (Contract being the working title of the novel) on my PC, but I switched to handwriting for the challenge. I wanted to let go of everything I had done previously so I wouldn’t be procastinating by editing what I’d set down in the past.
This was my first time writing so much for a novel by hand, but it was the best chance for me to finally use a notebook I’d been hanging onto since 5 years ago. I would be writing the outlines for my next 25 scenes in here. It is a pretty cute journal, don’t you think? (I actually repurposed it from an old project).
And now… how it went:
I’ve been dawdling with all the above formalities, but here is my experience of the Camp NaNoWriMo Challenge.
I managed to write everyday, and that was honestly not the hard part. Since 2020, I have allocated thirty minutes each day to write (except during exam season) so I was acccustomed to the act of sitting down to write something or other. What I found more difficult was sticking to the one project for all the days.
I’m more used to switching to different projects, either as I feel like it — and by having clientwork slip in every so often to also help mix things up. This WIP of mine, Contract, was definitely my main project through it all but in the latter half of 2022, I had gotten used to switching between whatever I’d wanted.
About groups, I had been meaning to join one on the NaNoWriMo website but just a week or so before Camp began, I ended up joining the Discord Server of Paper Tiger, a Fantasy and Bi-lingual Children’s author who has fostered a writerly community on YouTube through her live productivity sprints.
It was a great motivator to essentially live-blog my experience day by day in there and receive encouragement from the other authors who embarked to write something for Camp too. We exchanged words of support and tips at times too. So, even if I didn’t join a NaNoWriMo group, I still had an online community.
I’ll briefly mention that I also rejoined (a lot of rejoining this month — with Camp, Medium and now…) Habitica, a gamified productivity platform, ten days into July. I didn’t use it for writing much, but it was fun to have my rpg character level up and attack monsters each time I ticked off “write for 30 minutes.”
Of course, the writing still had to be done by myself. I would work anytime of the day that suited, sometimes as early as 1 AM, to 9AM, 3PM, 6PM, 10 or even until 23:50. It’s not too unusual for me during my normal writing days so I am not surprised. I apparently wrote most between 5 and 6 PM, if that shows anything.
I tried a few things at the start, but here is the session structure I ended up sticking to: A ten minute warm up where I could work on random prose & paragraphs to jog the mind. It was especially useful as sometimes I was not in the mood at all. Mostly I’d choose one vowel and make a paragraph with only words including that vowel. Near the end, I made paragraphs where I included the daily Wordle. This usually took more than ten minutes in fact, LOL.
After my warm-up, I would go to my notebook, and write one page of ideas (a brainstorm) for the scene I’d be getting into. It really helped me settle in my seat to do the work. A lot of good ideas came from the brainstorming. I didn’t put too much restrictions on myself and it paid off, although it took a long time to do.
Then… I’d begin outlining my scenes with a thirty minute timer on the PC. I’d love to say it took just half an hour to do all of it, but to be honest, I had often ended up pausing the timer mid-way to check something online, see what my sister was doing, or have a snack. However, I would write for half an hour altogether.
Some days were torturous and I’d agonise over a scene for a few sessions. I sometimes ended up scrapping a scene and that was frustrating as I had a numerical metric for the challenge. I’d told myself though that there was no pressure. On the bright side, I felt like a genius some days and I got 2 scene outlines in a day.
There are many things I picked up from this challenge and I wouldn’t know where to start with them, but I’d say it was good for me, all in all. I can get it off my imaginary bucket list now — that I have engaged in some form with NaNoWriMo. The biggest takeaway is that the ambitious goal was in fact a help.
It was basically a size-down of maybe a more thinkable goal: “write 30/31 scenes — a scene a day.” I gave myself six free days, basically, and it ended out in my favour because I ended up beating the challenge.
I achieved my Camp NaNo Goal on the 30th of July, with the 25 complete scenes.
Wow. I’m pretty chuffed over that, still. Going forth, I will type all of the work onto my Doc (ugh) and otherwise work on a few short stories for a while, and maybe pick up some clients. August will be a chill month with no challenges for me, but I am planning to join the real NaNoWriMo in November!
This was a fun challenge and I’m looking forward to the 50,000 words aspect of it in a few months. Thanks so much for reading.
