How To Do Camp NaNoWriMo Like a MOFO
Updated for Camp NaNoWriMo July 2022.
Summer camp used to be about all the books you could read, sunburns, and bug bites. Now that I’m a grown-up, summer camp is about writing — especially of the WiFi-free variety.
July is for writers. And really, so are November and April — followed by all the other months of the year — especially if you’re a business owner who has a ton of writing to do for your business.
Whether you’re a business owner who creates content, sales copy, blogs, and emails, or a ghostwriter, copywriter, or author — summer is the perfect time to write.
I’m writing this under my covered front porch in my white Adirondack chair, sipping a big glass of water with fresh lime juice and mint. Writing in cool, dewy mornings, or after dusting off the sand from the beach, from your hammock or chaise — there are so many great places for summer writing.
July is Camp NaNoWriMo — which stands for National Novel Writing Month.
The main writing event happens in November. You can work on any project you like for April and July as well. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in a month. It's a fantastic way to strengthen your writing muscles, which, if you write daily, works out to roughly 1,600 words a day.
Traditionally, NaNoWriMo is used for writers to draft a fiction novel — the average length being 50,000 words.
For Camp NaNoWriMo, or when you’re a part of the Writing Community — you can use this month to make progress and create some fantastic momentum on any creative project you like. We choose our own word count goal, a single project, or a bunch of writing projects.
Every April, July, and November inside the Write Like a MOFO community, business owners commit to their own word count goals, track along in the community, come to our live co-writing sessions (like co-working, but with a writing focus), and make massive progress on their writing projects.
Here’s how we do Camp NaNoWriMo Like a MOFO:
Choose our word count goals
Commit to our writing projects — can be books, blog posts, email copy, sales copy, an opt-in, newsletters, podcast notes, video scripts, a book, two books, or any combination of these
Edit or revise works-in-progress
Writing community members track their daily word counts inside the community — it’s a fun and motivating month when you see yourself get closer to your word count goal
The best parts — writing more, having a goal, taking inspired action to make progress on it each day, and creating a new habit or strengthening an old one.
The greatest feeling is finishing what you started — and then looking back on everything you’ve created.
Once you decide you want to focus on a writing project for Camp NaNoWriMo in July, there are some things you can do to set yourself up for writing success. You can prepare throughout the month before or put together an unfussy plan in just a day or two.
Here are some ideas to help you prepare for writing success:
Brainstorm a list of ALL the things you'd love to write or edit in July. Read my best tips for a powerful brainstorm here.
Review your list and start to prioritize your projects, or simply use your big list as a menu, and write a little on whatever topic strikes your fancy each day
Write some bullet points for each thing you want to write
Dream up one big writing project, maybe it's a book or an ebook
Decide when you’ll write. Will you write every day at 7 am? Or will you write Monday to Friday and take the weekends off?
Pick your writing place. Maybe you’ll write at your desk or switch it up and write on your couch, porch, or in bed.
Make a (loose) writing plan. Listen, I’m a panster and I used to avoid making plans. But ever since I started intentionally planning my content calendar, I appreciate having a plan to guide me. I can change my plan when I need to, but mostly, my plan is there to support me.
In 2017, I did NaNoWriMo for the first time and worked on my book, Unfussy Life: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change. And then, that book sat collecting dust in a Google folder until November 2018 (yes, an entire year later), where I edited the entire thing. Then, another year later, in November 2019, I revised most of it and added tens of thousands of words.
My first book took more than three years to write, and that’s because I didn’t have a plan. Now that I know how to plan to write my books, they come together much faster.
Here's to Unfussy Writing. Today, and every day — that you feel like writing anyway.
Want to boost your chances of NaNoWriMo success?
Join us in the Writing Community!
