PaWriCo Bookish Bootcamp

Hey all, Sam here.

I need to get back to writing and creativity. It has felt EXTRA hard for the past 7-8 months, although it has been pretty difficult for the past two years. I keep wanting to tell my stories and to get them down on the page, and they’ve been simmering in my mind all this time, with me daydreaming and plotting and figuring out details about different scenes and details and characters and such…but they’ve stayed stuck in my head. It has been the biggest struggle to try and get the words to migrate from my imagination onto the page. And the longer I go without writing, without an outlet for that creativity, the harder the whole process feels.

I’ve enjoyed the bits of PaWriCo when I’ve actually been able to participate, but it feels like I only make it like 20% of the way through any of their very cool writing challenges. So they’ve announced another challenge, this one for the summer, and it lines up to end as I head off to Gen Con to participate once again in the Writer’s Symposium. Hopefully by the time David and I leave for Indianapolis, I’ve actually managed to make some okay progress in my writing.

I’ve linked the PaWriCo Instagram below, where you can find out even more information, but in this post I’m going to do a brief rundown of this summer challenge, and then talk about my own personal goals for the 6 week Bootcamp. So, let’s get into it.

When: June 20-July 31

The PaWriCo Bookish Bootcamp is basically a 6 week challenge to help build up writerly muscles and develop good habits. As with any of the PaWriCo challenges, it can be customized to what suits your needs the best.

The PaWriCo team has very helpfully laid out 10 different habits as suggestions, such as:

Write (Write for 30 minutes a day, Draft 1000 words a week, Edit 10 pages per day, Work on project 3x/week) Choose/Create the goal that works for you.Read (Read for 15 minutes a day, Read 25 pages per day, Read one book a week)Learn (Read 10 pages of a craft book per day, Listen to one podcast per week, Watch a writing lecture each week with “Studying the Craft” Discord group)Connect (Encourage 2 writing friends per day, Engage online in a writing community 3x per week, Comment on another writer’s post once per day)Share (Post on your writing account daily, Post a story 3x per week, Share about your project once a week)Challenge (Write 100-word flash fiction daily, Write one short poem daily, Use a new writing prompt each week)Explore (Visit a new coffee shop each week to write, Sign up for a new activity to inspire you, Adventure out of town to see new sights)Move (Walk every morning, Do a workout 3x per week, Take daily exercise breaks between writing sprints: push-ups, squats, etc)Get Inspired (Watch a movie once a week and pay attention to how it impacts you emotionally, Look at art daily, Find a new song each day to add to your book playlist)Hydrate (Drink 2L of water per day, Use a reusable water bottle daily, Experiment with a new water flavoring each week)

I’m not going to take on all 10 of these habits because that would be too much to focus on at one time, but that’s fine. It’s basically summertime now, so I do tend to drink a good amount of water and I already experiment with water flavoring, which means that isn’t a habit I need to build up. Likewise, I do tend to read a decent amount regularly (I believe I am at 53 completed reads so far this year), so I don’t need to pick up a reading habit.

Obviously I will be trying to build up more of a writing habit during this challenge. Trying to set a daily writing goal hasn’t been working for me lately, so I think a weekly goal makes more sense. I believe I’m going to do a split goal, so each week I want to either 1) work on project 3 times OR 2) write 2000 words per week. Oh, and by work on project, I do mean that it has to be something more than just daydreaming. I need to scribble down ideas or plot chapters or do more character exploration. It needs to be something written down that will help build up the story. As long as I achieve one of those goals each week I will be happy.

I also really miss doing my Weekend Writer posts where I reviewed and tried out writing craft books, so my learning goal is to read 2-3 craft books during the 6 week challenge. I don’t know what books I’m going to dive into just yet, but I have some options.

Now, for a couple of these books–Stop Worrying, Start Writing by Sarah Painter, and Gentle Writing Advice by Chuck Wendig–I’ve already read them, but I think a re-read and re-examine would be pretty good right about now. But the others all sound good and useful for where I’m at right now, so I don’t know what I’ll start with (or what I might read before this PaWriCo Bookish Bootcamp starts).

Finally, I want to get myself out of the house a bit. I live in a nice little walkable town with several nice parks, and I’m right on the Mississippi River, so once a week I want to get out of the house and “touch grass.” I figure I can take my picnic blanket with me, as well as a book or notebook, and just enjoy being outside for a little bit.

I think that sounds like a pretty reasonable habit goal for this challenge. Wish me luck!

That’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.