Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us, and today I’m sharing my Camp NaNoWriMo plan. I can’t guarantee that this will work for everyone, but I know that it will work for me. So if you’re looking for ideas about how to best tackle your word count this July, stick with me.

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One thing I love about the July Camp NaNoWriMo is that I’m off work. Well, for most of it. My last day of the summer session is July 5. (Yes, we get July 4 off, and the students hate it because they have to be in class for the third and fifth, but I don’t make the rules.) So, after July 5, I’m a full-time writer. And with that comes some pretty exciting possibilities.

If you check out my Camp NaNoWriMo vlogs from July 2018, you’ll see how burnt out I was when it all began, and how stressed out and tired I was. While I can’t say that a lot has changed, I think my headspace definitely has. So, while I’m still tired and will be finishing two summer classes, I feel pretty confident that I’ll be ready to dive right into this story.

Also, it’s worth noting that my Camp NaNoWriMo plan isn’t really a set of hard and fast deadlines or rules. It’s mostly just some things for me to keep in my mind as I work. And while I wish I were a super regimented person, I’m beginning to see that the more loosey-goosey something is, the more I thrive. So, in an effort to enable success, I’ve created this Camp NaNoWriMo plan.

But, if you need something a little more strict, you can check out this post about April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, or get you some of these books for NaNoWriMo.

The Camp NaNoWriMo Plan

001: Enjoy that I’m off work, and write like it.

I don’t have to teach intersession and the summer session, and I’m definitely rethinking my choice to do so every single summer. But until I actually stop doing it, I’m going to savor the time off I do have. I wish it were more than a month, but there’s not a lot I can do about that this year.

Instead, I want to take this time and structure it as I would if I were working as a full-time writer. I’m not entirely sure what this will look like, and like I said, I thrive more with a loosey-goosey structure. But here’s what I do know:

• There will definitely be more time for reading.
• I want to write out on the back porch and sip coffee while Rosie investigates every corner of the yard in the morning.
• I want to work on bloggy stuff in the afternoons.
• I want to spend the evenings reading or binge watching all the shows I need to catch up on.

I also think I’m going to take advantage of all the local coffee shops and local Camp NaNoWriMo writing meet ups. I think it may be fun to do some writing all over the fine city of Norman, Oklahoma.

002: Take advantage of my cabin and their wisdom.

Kate Cavanaugh is a bad ass, and you should be following her on YouTube. (Her videos where she tries the writing routines of other writers are some of my favs.) She created a cabin full of authortubers, and I’m so happy to be a part of it.

During the April Camp NaNoWriMo, there was a group write-in on YouTube, and there will be a little bit more this summer. But it’s great that there’s a group of writers all in the same place, so it only makes sense that I should break into their craniums and steal the wealth of knowledge that is floating betwixt the gelatinous hemispheres of their brain.

Also, if you’re interested in seeing some of my vlogs throughout the month, make sure you’re subscribed to my channel!

003: Track everything in the ol’ bullet journal.

In my post earlier this month about why I switched to a bullet journal, I mentioned that I would be tracking my word count in some way. But I think I would also like to track the times of day that I write, how much caffeine I’ve had, and how much I get done in however much time. I don’t know if it will give me any data that is worth having, but it might.

And that’s one thing I really want to take away from Camp NaNoWriMo. I want to see how well I know my creative self, or find ways to enable the creativity. If I’m being honest, it’s not always easy to get work done. And I want to know what the optimal time for me to work is, and what conditions I work best under.

I also want to track how far into my novel project I am, and how many words each scene or chapter winds up being. I think I’m going to do this digitally though, just so I have it with the novel itself.

This may be too much, and the more I write this out, the more I think maybe it’s overkill. But whatever. Camp NaNoWriMo only comes around twice a year!

004: Do a little experimentation and maybe vlog it all out?

I know that I want to experiment with when and where I write. I also want to do some writing sprint hacking where I enhance my writing speed. (For more on this, check out Rachel Aaron’s book 2k to 10k, or Chris Fox’s 5,000 Words Per Hour.)

But I think I may do some writing vlogs and try to figure out where I work best. And I may write in weird places. I’m not entirely sure yet, and I don’t want to announce anything in case plans fall through, but I do know that I want to write as much as possible.

Ultimately, I want to find out more about myself as a writer, and I want to know how I can enable success.

005: Write like I did when I was 21.

My friend, Katie, and I often talk about how easy it was to write when we were younger. Like, when all your money went to cheap clothes and shots at the bar. And how after work, we’d come home and curl up with a laptop (this is back in the day when laptops weighed like a million pounds and got really, really hot) and just write under the covers in our beds.

Those days are mostly gone, just because being an adult requires way more of you than any 21-year-old tends to give. But I want to have that dedication to a project that I had when I was a little more carefree.

I don’t know if I’ll be curling up in a bed a whole lot because I am “my back hurts from sitting down” years old. But I do know that I want to just sit down with a cup of coffee and write like I have no inner critic again.

What’s Your Camp NaNoWriMo Plan?

How are you going to tackle Camp NaNoWriMo this July? Have a fool-proof tip for hitting your goals? What’s your favorite thing about Camp NaNoWriMo? Are you planning to track it all in your planner? Let me know in the comments!