Camp NaNoWriMo

Camp NaNoWriMo, basically normal NaNoWriMo but you're on a virtual camp. And it's in April, and you get to set your own writing goals. Just very similar. All fun. I'm doing it this year for the first time, and it is day two. I'm pretty excited for it. My word goal is only 20,000 but that's because I'm using Camp NaNo to finish two of my short stories. The main reason I'm excited is because of the stories, which is always the reason isn't it? I'll get to telling you about those in a minute, first, a little about the camp.

In normal NaNo you get to write with everybody. You're all connected and you can message whoever you want and find out about whoever you want. In Camp NaNo, however, you are placed into Cabins. Cabins are groups of twelve people, yourself included I think, I haven't actually counted to see if I'm included, and those are the only people you get to see. You can message those people in a big chat they have set up where you can see what everyone else posts, and I think you can also privately send people messages if you want. It's really a great idea because this way you can develop a better relationship with your fellow writers if those are the only ones there instead of having a selection of almost a million writers to talk to.

For the Cabins, you can pick to have complete strangers, or you can have a Cabin full of your friends, or a Cabin with some friends and some complete strangers. For this year, seeing as I don't actually know many people on the NaNoWriMo site, I've only got one friend in the Cabin and the other 10 (11?) are total strangers. That is actually cool, in the sense that I'm fine with it, as I like meeting new people. Only online though is it fine as I'm a shy person in real life. And I look forward to getting to know them a lot better in the coming month.

Now, my stories. You can write as many stories as you want and write as many words as you want for NaNoWriMo, so I'm doing two stories. The first story is called 'The World of Mr Green' and it's a fantasy sort of thing set in a little outback town in Western Australia that is run by this mysterious man that has the whole town hypnotised. A girl, Walter Saint-Jean, is a travelling magician who stops by the town to do a show before moving on. That was the plan, somehow for some reason the mysterious man, Mr Green, takes an interest in her and won't let her escape. She takes it upon herself to answer some valuable questions about him, namely, Who is he? What is he? and How is he?

This story is probably the weirdest I've ever written, not just in the setting and characters, but in the way I'm writing it. The sentence structures are off the roof and off this world. You'll either enjoy reading it, or will cringe dreadfully and drop the book. We shall see.

The second story is called 'Requiem for a Dead Thing' which I'm writing as a play. It's my first play, and it's interesting writing it. It's about this Lord whose son has suddenly died, and so he hires a travelling composer to write a requiem. His two other children, another son and a daughter, think it's a waste of time and try to scare the composer off.

It will probably be a lot more interesting to read than what I just wrote about it, don't worry.

And that's it, I think. I'm still editing 'Of Lights and Shadows' which is going slowly. Too Many Words!!! I don't know when I'll be finished that, or if it will still be published in June. We shall also see about that. There isn't really a problem if I don't publish it this year, it will be published eventually. Either as a normal book or as an e-book.

And that's it. Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Peter.