NaNoWriMo Review: How It Can Help You Write Your Novel

“An idyllic writer’s retreat, smack dab in the middle of your life” ~Camp NaNoWriMo motto

Whether you have a story you’ve always wanted to write, a story you abandoned with hopes of coming back, or a story you want to finish, there is a neat program you can take advantage of this summer: Camp NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place every November in a large online community to help writers write their novels, specifically 50,000 words in a month.Their tools help you keep track of your progress in multiple ways, but more on that later.

While NaNoWriMo is great, November is very inconvenient for me, personally. Not only do I have a lot of school to do, but the first half of the month my family and I are preparing for Thanksgiving company and the second half we have a ton of Thanksgiving company. I managed to do it once, but it was not at all easy and that was before I was registered with Mother of Divine Grace and had Learning Support classes.

That is the reason I love Camp NaNoWriMo. It has all the resources of NaNoWriMo, but takes place during April and even better . . . July, (aka right smack in the middle of Summer). I always write stories during the summer, but this helped me to write about 56,000 words in one of my novels last July, which equals ¾ done. My experiences have been fantastic! If you are interested in participating this summer, then read on and consider taking advantage of this program.

 

Facts you need to know up-front:

• NaNoWriMo is an organization run through donations only, which means it is completely free. While donating is nice, it is not mandatory and your use of their provided tools is not limited if you don’t.
• Chats, forums, and communication with strangers is available, but it’s an option you can choose to or not to use. See below for more information and tips on using it well.
• There are three separate sites: NaNoWriMo, Young Writers’ Program (YWP) NaNoWriMo, and Camp NaNoWriMo
  • Camp NaNoWriMoand NaNoWriMo are for people 13 and up; and YWP is for K-12 students (generally who are under 17) and teachers
• Camp NaNoWriMo and the YWP allows you to set your own word-count goals and NaNoWriMo has the set word-count goal of 50,000

 

Signing Up

There are different requirements for the different sites. Here are the sign-up pages for each of the sites.

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As you can see, they require hardly any personal information. Here is what their YWP’s “Terms and Conditions” says about their request for your email: “Your email address is used by this site to confirm your registration details and password, and to send out NaNoWriMo pep talks, newsletters, site notifications, and other NaNoWriMo-related messages. We do not share or sell participants’ information, and your email address will not be made visible to others.” After you’ve signed up and confirmed your registration, you can add information to your profile at your discretion.

*Please note that while NaNoWriMo will send you notifications, you can unsubscribe from them through the link located at the bottom of their emails.

 

Novel-Writing Features

This is my favorite part: the features. You have your own profile and your novel does too! It gets it’s own picture, synopsis, and excerpt. Once your novel and it’s word-count goal is up, you are ready to use the status tool. Every dayduring the month you can update how many words you have written so far and NaNoWriMo’s Status tool will tell you your:

• Average words per day you should try to write
• Your average words per day
• Words written that day
• Target word count
• Total words written
• Current day
• Days remaining
• The finishing date if you continue at your current rate
• And words per day to finish on time

Plus, there is a chart to give you a visual of where you are in comparison to the day and your word-count goal. This chart automatically updates every time you update your word-count.

*If you are participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, then you can also see the same stats in regard to your cabin. What is your cabin? That leads us to the next section.

 

NaNoWriMo Community Interaction

NaNoWriMo prides itself with having an uplifting community of participants who help each other achieve their goals. This can be both good . . . and not so good. The obvious reason being that there are many types of authors with many types of styles, some being rather vulgar, gratuitous, and mature (or immature). Here I have divided this topic into the three forms of NaNoWriMo interaction and the in’s and out’s of each.

NaNoMail

Want to communicate with fellow NaNoWriMo participants without knowing their real email or using your own? Use NaNoMail! You can send messages to anyone whose username you know email-style directly from their site. (This is another way NaNoWriMo can also send you notifications).

Forums

NaNoWriMo and YWP each have their own forums on their sites, but not Camp NaNoWriMo. All forums are moderated by their administration and posts/people can be reported. (The staff is very good about this). Here is what the YWP’s “Terms and Conditions” says:

There are certain kinds of messages we do not allow on the forums or in NaNoMail. Anyone posting abusive, sexually explicit, hateful, or threatening material (or any other stuff that may violate any applicable laws), will have their NaNoWriMo account deleted and will be banned from the site. No foul language is allowed on the Young Writers Program forums, and anyone using inappropriate language will have their posts deleted from the forums, and be banned from our site.

Similar rules apply to NaNoWriMo, except they allow more mature content on their forums, (some sections of their very-organized-forums more than others). That being said, you won’t find all that content everywhere on their forums and there are parts that are very helpful.

They have places where you can go to ask other participants for ideas if your plot runs out of steam or hits a wall, “adoption centers” where you can give or take characters, pure inspiration, “genre lounges,” and more! I personally keep my forum interactions to a minimum, (I want to spend my time writing my novel instead), but have taken advantage of their forums on multiple occasions, helping others and asking for help. Everyone is really friendly.

The NaNoWriMo forums can be useful in finding Cabins for Camp NaNoWriMo too . . .

Cabin Chats

Before I get to the Cabin Chats, let me explain what the cabins are.

I’ve gone camping many times with my family and I can’t imagine going camping alone! When I go camping with friends, I absolutely love tenting with them! That is the idea behind the Cabins of Camp NaNoWriMo. Camp NaNoWriMo is an online writers summer-camp, during which you can be a part of a cabin. There are five options for cabins:

1. You can create a cabin in which you invite others

This is great if you have real or online NaNoWriMo friends. If you don’t have any, then you can go to the NaNoWriMo forums under the Camp NaNoWriMo section and ask if anyone is interested in joining your cabin. Most people will set down rules, (i.e. “Teenagers/Young Adults writing Science Fiction,” or “Christians who will keep their writing/chats clean and appropriate,” or combinations of the two, etc.) As leader of a cabin, you can invite up to 11 participants and also kick out participants. You are only allowed to be a part of one cabin at a time.

2. You can be invited to a cabin

Again, you can be invited through people you know (personally or online) or by asking to join someone’s cabin on the Camp NaNoWriMo forum.

3. You can be assigned a random cabin

4. You can be sorted into a cabin according to your age group, genre, and/or word-count goal.

5. You can camp alone, without a cabin

If you or your parents are not comfortable with the cabins, you can still take advantage of the stats feature without being in a cabin.

*See here for specific directions on Cabin settings

Each cabin is open from a week before to a couple weeks after the writing month. While in a cabin, there is a group/cabin chat available. This is why it is important to chose what type of cabin you want. I have been a part of cabins multiple times and have always stuck to cabins with the “appropriateness” rule. Never have I witnessed anything inappropriate said in them. Since I don’t have any big writer friends in real life, I find that having the cabins online really uplifting and I love it. I hope to start my own cabin this upcoming July!

*The Cabins feature is only available during Camp NaNoWriMo, but you can have Writing Buddies during NaNoWriMo, which is similar, but still not the same.

 

My Experience

I’m sure you are absolutely dying to hear about me . . . I’m just kidding; you’re probably thinking about closing this tab right now. I just have a few last words to say:

I am a novelist-nerd. I have finished one novel, am currently finishing two, have planned another dozen, have started countless others, and have little bits of story ideas cluttering every electronic device and notebook I have. I need so much growth before my novels amount to anything, but I love writing, I hate writing, and I could never let it go!

I look forward to Camp NaNoWriMo every year! It really motivates me to write and keeps me going (even when I feel like a blind, sick slug trying to win the Kentucky Derby).

All the NaNoWriMos are helpful tools for the first-draft phase of your novel. That is their focus.Before a NaNoWriMo you should at least have your main characters and basic plot worked out. Personally, I prefer to create an outline for my story and have detailed character pages for each of my main characters before I start. After you’ve written your first draft, you can go forward with the series of rewrites and editing, (which is another article entirely).

*Quick tip: if you ever feel like you’re making poor progress in your word-count, start setting timers. Try a word war with someone else or even with yourself to try and write as many words as you can in a set time. It works wonders.

While NaNoWriMo may not work for everyone, it is worth looking into this upcoming July.

What other ways do you help yourself write your stories?