Well, maybe not cheat, per say. More like deviate slightly from the rules, while still sticking with the spirit of the event. Sort of …
As I explained in some post in the past, Camp NaNo is all about sitting down every day for a month and writing. Now, you’re supposed to start a new story from scratch. But to that I say PAH! As if I have time for such shenanigans. What I really need to do is finish the sequel to Imminent Danger, and I’m about 20k words out from doing exactly that. And since they changed the rules this year so you can set your own word count limit … talk about a golden opportunity for a little free motivation!
So, basically, I will be attempting Camp NaNo this year, and I urge you all to join me. You set the word count, so there’s no need to freak out about having to write 1,667 words a day, where failing damns you to the eternal purgatory of crushed literary dreams. And since I’m cheating blatantly, y’all should feel free to do the same!
Got a story squirrelled away somewhere that you never quite finished writing? First of all, stop squirrelling things away. It’s undignified. Second of all, grab that story, dust off the bark and acorn crumbs, and join me for a month of glorious writing awesomeness!
This concludes my confession / call to arms. Here’s a link to my camper profile. Feel free to add me, or friend me, or however the heck the internet works. To Camp Nano-finity, and beyond!!!
Related media of the day:
More fan art!!! Today’s offering comes from the lovely Kate Sparks. Check out her rendition of Miguri, the loveable, contraction-phobic alien:
Related update of the day:
No news from iUniverse yet on the ebook pricing debacle. The general consensus seems to be that people in the USA see the correct price, and everyone else … well, doesn’t. If you live outside the USA and for some reason you can’t possibly live another second without reading the brilliant literary masterpiece that is my book, Google Play has the ebook for super cheap. Oh, and the free Goodreads Giveaway is ending in the near future. So check that out. Or not. Whatever pressurizes your escape capsule.
Unrelated media of the day:
An internet classic for you:
Michelle Proulx - Author 
They’re encouraging cheating! I even read “finish a manuscript in progress” somewhere, right alongside “short story collection” and “screenplay.” You don’t need to feel badly at all.
Signed,
I’m totally revising and rewriting this time
Phew! And here I thought the Camp NaNo police would read this post and come after me with their red pens of doom (TM). 😀
Nah, at worst they’ll chuck you in the lake and see how you fare against the friendly-yet-unpredictable aquatic monsters. 🙂
God, I did NaNoWriMo in high school… The result was terrible, cliched, and smutty, since the easiest way for me to boost my word count was copious amounts of purple prose. But it felt good to realize I was capable of producing that many words.
I assume you’re starting this tomorrow? I can’t possibly do it this time around, unless those 20,000 words are going to be part of my thesis (and written in the next 11 days.. eep!). But maybe by July you’ll be ready for book three (ha!) and we can have writing/slumber parties.
Ha indeed. I expect by July I’ll be deep in the “Wade my way through the sea of edits from my beta readers” stage. Also, you’ll be amused to know that you totally freaked me out. I didn’t recognize who you were from your username at first, so I thought some random internet person was suggesting I have a slumber party with them. Eek. Um … yes, starting tomorrow. Hopefully, lol. I think that writing a thesis counts towards Camp Nano — apparently anything goes these days. 😀
Ha ha. Yeah, I forgot I’ve been changing my display name manually when leaving comments. I’ve fixed it permanently now. Sorry to scare you.
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll try this. I have never tried nanowrimo before, but it is worth a shot!
No down side, right? Especially when you can set your own word count!
You may have just encouraged me to check out Camp Nanowrimo. I will echo you with “To Camp Nano-finity and Beyond!!!”
Pew pew!!!
Good luck! I’ll be joining you, and I’m also completing a novel rather than starting a new one 🙂
Excellent! We renegades must stick together. Or else how can we … renegade stuff?
OHHAI! 🙂 Maybe I will use this new, slightly-cheating version of Nano as an excuse to finish my OWN book! I mean, I had planned to do that anyway, but now I can also use it as a success story for Nano. Win-win? I THINK SO. 8) And I sent you a message so I could keep track of your username.
Excellent! Wait, you mean a message outside of this comment??? Where do I find it? AHHHHHHHHH!!!
I don’t know! I thought I sent one, anyway. D: Camp Nano runs differently to regular Nano, and I have no idea how it works, to be totally honest. I can’t seem to add you as a friend or anything like I can on the other one… Hmm. I guess I’ll keep trying.
Oohhhhh you sent me a message on Camp Nano! I thought you meant WordPress. Hang on … excellent! Admittedly I have no idea how to “friend” you or anything, but I did manage to send a message back. So … victory?
Sounds like a win to me! Sometimes it’s the little things, you know? And yeah, I don’t think Camp Nano even HAS a friend thing. So… mmkay. Price we pay for getting to set our own wordcount I guess? xD
Lol I suppose. I guess it’s an either or option? Although it’s awesome that they’ve set this up for us at all, so I guess we can’t complain about functionality 😀
Can u join camp naniwrimo whenever you want or do they do it only in nov?
The original NaNoWriMo is in November. Camp NaNo this year is April and July. Camp NaNo is basically a more flexible version of the original NaNo in November.
Yay!! And it starts today? I’m googling this. Thx for the update!!!
It does indeed start day. Woo! Writing party!!!
It doesn’t matter what you write (within reason), just as long as you write 50,000 plus words.
Well, I set my word count for 20,000 … so hopefully they don’t laugh in my face and kick me out … 😀
Ha! I won’t be doing any of the camps (how many are there, I ask? – falling behind with my writing ambitions as it is) but I was thinking of cheating Michelle-style in November by adding the (hopefully) final 50K to the same novel I started last year.
I won’t tell anyone if you don’t! 😉
There are two camps — last year it was June/August, this year it’s April/July. And never fear, good sir. Your secret’s safe with me. 😀
I’m doing July NaNo after the August success last year. Good luck with your sequel 🙂
Thanks 😀 I’ll wish you good luck on your own success once we get a bit nearer to July.
Best of luck with Camp NaNo, Michelle. One day when I’m not so busy I’d love to do something like this 😉
I wasn’t planning on it, but when I saw you could set your own word count, and write pretty much whatever you want … very tempting 😀
Does 1667 means you don’t care and just bring your story wherever it takes you even though you might have swung off course? Am thinking of checking it out.
1667 words a day brings you to 50k words in a month … madness! It doesn’t necessarily mean you go crazy and just let the plot go wherever you want — a lot of people outline their stories extensively before NaNo time arrives, while others (myself included), just set fingers to keyboard and see where the story takes us. You should definitely check out Camp NaNo! You can even set your own word count, so if you only want to tackle, say 20,000 words, no problem 😀
Pingback: Day 2 of Camp NaNoWriMo April 2013 | thelissachronicles
Michelle, you have inspired me. True it is already three days in, but I’m going back to sign up. When I looked at it this weekend, I didn’t feel like I could start a new novel before I finished the last one. Now that I know I can cheat, it seems a good way to finish the project I started in November. Thanks so much!
My pleasure 🙂 Inspiring cheating is pretty much what gets me through the day, lol. Good luck with Camp Nano! I’m a bit behind so far, but I have high hopes to make a great leap forward over the weekend. Fingers crossed!
A great opportunity to finish these 20k words of course! Good luck 🙂 It’s too bad I’m way too busy with school to get into any writing challenge this year, since it’s my last year of high school.
Oh yeah, I can imagine — I remember being absolutely swamped in my last high school semester. Good luck!!! What are your plans after school? College/Uni? Travel the world?
Uni! Going for a creative writing course 🙂
Nice! Is that a full bachelor degree? I wish I’d thought of that before signing up for history/classics. It was an interesting degree but … not very useful, lol.
Yes. Well at least you increased your knowledge! And maybe you’ve got more story ideas/development with that…?
The Greek myths were definitely a great inspiration, although they tend to revolve around tangled love affairs and people getting turned into animals and dying, which isn’t quite my genre, lol. But it was definitely an interesting degree!
I am doing camp nanowrimo this year and also want to “cheat” to make some headway on my novel that is already at 20K words. I have a question on logistics. Did you only input the new word count for each day? When you uploaded your novel for verification at the end did you upload the whole thing, or only the new part of it?
Yeah, only input what you write each day — so I guess just remember where you start, highlight the section, and figure out the word count 🙂 And then at the end I only uploaded the part I had written during the camp itself. Happy writing!