Once again, I’m going to participate in Camp Nanowrimo. Camp is similar to the full-fledged National Novel Writing Month, except they’re much looser on the rules (not that the full rules are that restrictive). Camp Nanowrimo is for doing things such as editing/revising a novel (which you may have written during a previous NaNoWriMo, for instance), or working on a smaller project as perhaps a way to practice for trying to write a full 50,000+ word story in 30 days at a subsequent NaNoWriMo.

I’ve used it in the past to do editing, plotting, and revising. Currently, I’m planning to finish off an editing project, which I have described rather facetiously. Though I’ve been so unproductive working on my novel in progress, that I’ve also been thinking of knocking out a few very short stories I’ve been noodling on for a long time first. We’ll see how I feel after work tomorrow!

Why do this as part of Camp Nanowrimo? It’s helpful to me to have a defined goal, with a clear end date and some mechanism for measuring progress. More importantly, a mechanism for reporting progress so I have motivation not to goof off. In most of my previous Camps and Nanos, I’ve managed to remain focused and accomplish at least most of my goal more quickly than when I’m just trying to meet my own monthly tasks.

I enjoy bantering with my writing buddies, including cheering them on when they make progress, or racing with someone to see who can hit a higher word count on a particular day.

So, I’ve invited a bunch of my past writing buddies to be cabin mates (a cabin is a group of participants who share a private message forum and can easily keep track of each others’ progress on the cabin web page). I think we’ve got a good group.

It’s going to be a fun April!