Happy April, everyone! The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, allergy season is beginning to reassert its dominance over us all, and the first sesssion of Camp Nanowrimo 2022 is here. As a devoted participant in any Nanowrimo event I’ve been able to get my hands on since the year 2011, I’m proud to present my top five tips for surviving this rollercoaster of a month you’ve just gotten yourself into. Buckle up!

But before we get started, a brief explanation. Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. Over the years, the Nanowrimo community has grown from a handful of close friends to literally hundreds of thousands of people, and several side events have also been born. These have coalesced into two sessions (April and July) of what is known as Camp Nanowrimo. The rules of Camp are far more flexible than those of the November event, allowing for types of projects besides novels as well as flexible word count goals. Some people still aim for 50,000 words, but the website also allows you to track time- or page-based writing goals. Some people even use Camp to track editing, by either words edited or hours spent. Lots of people do scripts or screenplays (traditionally tracked by page count). There’s even a special track for writers aiming to wrap up an unfinished first draft. It’s a great chance to dip your toes into the world of Nanowrimo, or novel-writing in general, with a huge community and lots of resources to support you.

Although the immediate products of novel-in-a-month challenges tend to be short, chaotic first drafts, plenty of authors have gone on to revise these into published works. If you enjoyed Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, or Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, for example, you have Nanowrimo to thank. And although the internet is packed full of people who scoff at the very concept of it, it’s hard to argue against the good Nanowrimo has done for the thousands of writers who come back every year to undertake the challenge, and the amazing year-round community that has sprung up around it.

So without further ado, here are five things to keep in mind this month – whether this is your first Camp or your twentieth. This advice will mostly be geared toward people undertaking the classic 50,000 words of a novel challenge, but can be applied in some form to whatever it is you’re doing.

1. Remember the point of a first draft.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until the day the worms eat me: first drafts are not supposed to be good. If you’re writing a first draft this month, this is a critical fact to keep in mind. First drafts are about getting the story out of your head and onto the page. They are riddled with inconsistencies, holes, erratic characterization, continuity errors, cliches, and every other writing mistake you can possibly imagine. You are not here to fix any of these things, or to prevent them from happening. You’re here to keep writing.

The value of Nanowrimo is that it forces you to put words down on the page without worrying about whether or not they’re good. This is actually a large part of the reason why the event is so popular with young writers and those who are just starting out: it’s specifically designed to help you break through the “but what if it sucks” mental block many people have around big writing projects. It doesn’t matter! You can worry about whether or not it sucks when you’re revising. Are we revising right now? No. So keep writing.

I recommend leaving notes for yourself as you go to quell the urge to stop and go back and fix things. My first drafts are filled with document comments that say things like “I’ve decided to pretend like X happened in the last chapter instead, go fix it” and “I didn’t set this up at all, add foreshadowing in post.” You could also keep a notebook or an accompanying document where you write this stuff down – whatever feels like your style. This record of how you envisioned the story will make your revision process ten times easier, while allowing you to plow onward and not feel like you’re just making a huge mess.

2. Develop a routine.

One of the big benefits of Nanowrimo is that it helps you build up the habit of writing a little bit every day. This is a benefit that can last for the rest of your writing career. It kind of goes back to that point about having a mental block around novel writing – something it’s much easier to combat if you’re in the habit of sitting down and doing the thing on a regular basis.

Look for parts of your day when you can sit down and consistently churn out some words. Maybe you’ve got a regular break during work or school where you can get some words in, or maybe this will turn into something you do while you drink your morning coffee, or wind down after dinner. Making writing a consistent and deliberate part of your schedule is really half the battle here. Even if that block of time you’ve found is only enough to get a few hundred words down on the page, it’s enough (and you’ll probably find you get faster as the month goes on). Which brings me to…

3. Set your own pace.

This may seem like contradictory advice for a challenge that involves writing a set number of words in a very short amount of time, but hear me out. Although it may not seem like it, there is far more than one way to do this.

The basic advice is to aim for 1,667 words per day, and if you’ve done Nanowrimo before, you probably have that number burned into the very fabric of your soul. But you also probably know that in practice, this isn’t always how things shake out.

This is where Camp Nanowrimo in particular has a huge advantage: you can actually change your writing goal throughout the month, which gives you a lot more freedom to pick a pace that works for you. If this is your first foray into Nanowrimo-land, give yourself some flexibility for the first week or so and just write whatever you can without worrying about the final word count goal. Then take a look back at what your daily average ended up being in that first week and use that to set your goal for the month. Even if you think you’ve got your goal nailed down, it’s a good idea to use the one week mark as a checkpoint to make sure you’re not over (or under!) committing. (By the way, the one week mark is also a good time to stop and look back at the actual novel as well, do some outlining if you haven’t already, and re-evaluate what you’re doing story-wise.)

4. Use the forums.

As I mentioned earlier, the community around Nanowrimo is one of the most wonderful things about it. Whether you’re looking for support, encouragement, advice, ideas, or research, I promise you’ll find it somewhere on the forums, many of which are active year-round.

My favorite forum of all time is the Reference Desk, which is a place to ask your research questions and connect with experts in those moments when Google fails you. And when I say the people on there are pros, I mean it. After many hours of tearing my hair out over a super obscure research question a few days ago, I finally broke down and posted it on the Reference Desk. I woke up the next morning to multiple extremely detailed responses that completely solved the problem. They actually gave me more information than I needed, as well as sources to back it all up. So if you’re writing something that involves a lot of research (historical fiction and hard sci-fi are common offenders) and you want to drastically cut down on your research time and maximize time spent writing, definitely take advantage of this resource. I’m serious, these people are incredible.

Another great resource is the Story Development forum (formerly known as Plot Doctoring), which currently houses five sub-forums: Character Café (for characterization help), Grammar & Style, Appellation Station (for helping each other name things – characters, worlds, entire books, whatever), Worldbuilding, and the Adoption Society (for trading ideas you don’t have a use for, and other collaborative brainstorming). This is one of my favorite little corners of the internet, and I highly recommend you check it out if you’re feeling stuck, confused, or bored with your story.

5. Be good to yourself.

Self-care is always important, but never more so than when you’re up against a deadline. Writing until your fingers fall off and your brain turns to mush might technically get you through the month, but there are some basic steps you can take to make this a more fulfilling process than a draining one, and ensure you can keep functioning during the month. Let’s have a little work-life balance, people. Plenty of Wrimos manage to do this challenge without losing their jobs, letting their grades plummet, destroying their relationships, or letting all their houseplants die, and you can too.

The thing is, there will be days when you just can’t write. Whether you’re insanely busy or you just feel kind of creatively drained, the feeling you’re having is okay and very normal. Pushing yourself is great, but not to the point of exhaustion. Prioritize getting enough sleep, keep a water bottle and snacks handy while you’re writing, and above all, be realistic about your goal. You might hit a point in the month where you realize it’s just not going to happen. And that is completely and totally okay.

This brings us back once again to the first point I made. Remember that the point of all this isn’t the thing you’re going to end up with, but the process of ending up with it in the first place. Every single word you put down on the page makes you a better writer, and every project you start brings the day of finishing one closer. Above all, this is supposed to be fun. If you’re no longer having fun, give yourself the freedom to pause and reevaluate, even if it means changing projects halfway through the month, scrapping and rewriting everything, or stopping altogether.

What advice and lessons learned do you have for Camp Nanowrimo? Leave a comment and let me know so we can all learn from each other.

Happy writing!