What Will Your Camp Creation Be?

We’re gearing up for Camp NaNoWriMo, and we’ve asked our great community for their advice for campers, both new and returning. Today, YWP writer Claire Marino shares what makes Camp NaNo so special: 

Imagine being locked in a room for a month. You’re told to set a goal for yourself, keep track of your progress, and create something you care about. You have complete creative freedom—something that, these days, is much harder to come by than you might think.

So, what is this mighty project? What do you immediately itch to write when given such a guideline? Take that inkling—that feeling—and bottle it up! You will need that inspiration later!

You might be thinking, “NaNoWriMo? Isn’t that the insane novel-in-November thing? I can’t do that. I don’t even want to write a novel, anyway.” To which I would say, “Great! Then Camp NaNoWriMo is just the thing for you!”

There is one main difference between Camp NaNo and November NaNo: creative freedom. In Camp NaNo, not only can you write whatever you want, but you can also track your progress however you want. You can track your project progress through words, lines, pages, or hours spent working on the project. The only measurement I could even think of to add to the list would be seconds spent thinking about the project. (Boy, wouldn’t it be great if they counted?)

Just think of all the wonderfully YOU things you could write with such progress-tracking freedom. In case you’re awestruck just thinking of all the possible things you could write, I’ve curated a list. From the conventional to the unique, there are truly no bad options with what you could write. You could write a…

Novel
Novel outline and/or other pre-writing processes
Novella
Screenplay
Video game scriptShort story or collection of short stories
Poem (an epic, a few poems, or a whole collection)
Board game
Zine
Memoir
Letter collection
Essay or essay collection
Dictionary in the fantasy language you’re creating
Recipe, or a whole cookbook
Comic book
Response to a different word prompt each day
Anything else you can imagine!

With Camp NaNoWriMo, not even the sky is the limit—you are encouraged to surpass it. 

I could probably write a novel itself about the endless possibilities Camp NaNoWriMo provides. In fact, I did, and I won last April. (Just kidding…I lost.)

It’s important to sit down and really think about what you want to create this month. Camp NaNoWriMo was created for people like you to create the things that matter to you—things that don’t necessarily fall under the “novel” umbrella.

Don’t let the opportunity pass you by to learn something about yourself and write something you care about in the process. Or, you know, write a dictionary chock full of the words your dog knows how to say. Whatever inspires you. This is your time to take advantage of creative freedom and set a goal. Prove to yourself that you can. Prove to the world it didn’t know what it was missing.

Claire Marino is a high school sophomore from New Jersey who has been creating stories since before she could read. She spends her free time reading anything she can get her hands on, singing under every breath, and writing everything from novels to poetry to music. Some of her favorite authors and greatest literary inspirations include Jandy Nelson, Marissa Meyer, L. M. Montgomery, and J. K. Rowling. Two recurring themes in her work about which her family loves to tease her include deceased fathers and the moon.