I’m going camping in July!

Well. Not camping in the traditional sense. At least, not until August – at which points there will be tents and bugs, and a lot of sun.

No, July’s camping is much more virtual. I’m going to be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. 30 days of cabinmates, forums of other writers, and me finishing this work in progress I have been wanting to finish.

A friend of mine suggested that we both participate. Me, so I can finish my current WIP, and her so she can finally really dig into a book that’s been floating around her head for like two years now.

Now, some of you are probably going, ‘what’s NaNoWriMo?’ and others, who may know about the main NaNoWriMo may be going ‘Camp NaNoWriMo? Did you make this up?’

First and foremost, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It was started way back when, and it’s when a bunch of us (thousands of us) writers get together for the month of November with the solid idea of writing 50,000 words in a month – ideally it’s towards a novel but some use it to rewrite novels, or do a compilation of short stores, etc. You can find more information at their website: nanowrimo.org

Camp NaNoWriMo is run by the same people who run the original NaNoWriMo. They created Camp NaNoWriMo because they had enough people going ‘but guys, I have finals in November, and we have this whole Thanksgiving Holiday because I live in the states where I have to be social with family! I can’t hole up for a month to write!’ And such, Camp NaNoWriMo was born. Camp is held twice a year, in April and in July. Unlike NaNoWriMo the Original, you can set your own word count for the month. Which makes it the perfect session to finish an already started project, verses trying to write one from start to finish.

And instead of regions that you’re broken into when participating in NaNoWriMo, Camp splits you into cabins of people and there’s a community discussion area where you can chit chat and encourage each other while the month gets going.

Find Camp NaNoWriMo at their website: campnanowrimo.org

Over all, it should be fun. And by the end of it, I should be able to go ‘It’s Finished!’. At least, that’s the plan!

Are you planning to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo? Let me know down in the comments below!