It’s been a month since the end of my very first Camp NaNo and the next Camp starts on the first of July. During the time in between, I thought you might enjoy hearing my thoughts about this online, virtual writer’s camp.

First off, I won my very first camp!

When I first signed up for Camp NaNo, I wasn’t sure just how much I could get written. I mean the most I’ve ever written in a month was 33k, and that was only once when I was able to get 8k written each week. I knew there was no way I’d be able to get that much written because April was busy. (It ended up even busier than I thought it would be.) So I thought, “Well, I can try for 20k. That would be 5k a week. Perhaps I can do that.”

My friend who invited me to Camp told me that I would be able to change my goal before the 20th if I needed to. Good. Because I was pretty sure that 20k was going to be stretching it.

Well, I started in. I wasn’t doing any sprinting because, well, I don’t write that way. I mean I take my time and think about my story as I’m writing it. Sprinting wouldn’t work.

(Side note for those who don’t know what Word Sprints are: You and anyone else you can get to join you, decide on the length of the sprint. My personal favorite being 15 minutes. Someone says go, and you focus on writing for that length of time until the leader says stop. Then you share your total number of words written. And often your last or favorite sentence.)

But back to my story. I was doing fine, getting more writing in because I was motivated. Then one day I didn’t want to write. I had no interest at all. So I mentioned that on our Cabin Chat board. One of the other girls offered to Sprint with me and see if that would help. I figured, “Why not? It couldn’t hurt and maybe I’ll get something written.” We did. I was astonished! I found out that I loved sprinting!

In fact, it became sort of addicting. 😉 I started counting my words I needed to write by how many sprints I thought it would take. And now that Camp is over, I find myself dragging my feet on writing because I have no one to sprint with. So sad.

But seriously, Camp NaNo was great! Not only did I manage to reach my goal of writing 20k words, I upped it to 30k and still went 5k beyond that! I was thrilled! And, because I could set whatever project I wanted to work on, I decided not to focus just on one thing. That way if I was stuck on one story, I could jump to another one and write on that. It was perfect.

As for Cabin Mates, I couldn’t have asked for better ones. The Lord brought together a great group of ladies, some were published, some were not. But everyone who got on the chat box was encouraging, uplifting, helpful, and ready to pull you out of your writing slump, cheer you on to victory and virtually shower you with chocolates and confetti. 🙂 There was some teasing, lots of laughter, prayer requests, and most importantly, friendships. It was a time of challenge as I tried to balance life with writing, but I’m thankful I did Camp.

 

I’m looking forward to July! Would you like to join me? I think we might have an empty bunk or two in the Chatter Box. If you are interested, let me know. If you have questions, just ask. I’d love to share the joys and fun of Camp with you.

And now . . .

To find out more, click on the image. I hope to see you next week at the party!

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