30 Days. 100 Pages. Are you in?

Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up with June and August sessions this summer and I want you to give it a try.

Did you attempt NaNoWriMo in the past but fell short of the 50,000 word goal? Were you totally jealous of the winners and their winner goodies? Or have you always meant to take on the challenge and just never had the chance? Is November a terrible month for you but you still want to participate in the writing fun? Or have you never even been interested in NaNoWriMo but just like winning free stuff?

There are no prizes for winning Camp NaNo like there are for NaNoWriMo Original Recipe (aka the one in November). But, just for signing up for even one of the 2012 summer sessions, I’ll give one lucky camper…

5 Free copies of your novel from CreateSpace!

This is one of the prizes you would have won if you were a NaNoWriMo Winner last November but anyone is eligible to win it, even if you’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo before. Read more. . . »

Book photograph with flipping pages. Français : Un livre dont les pages tournent. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To everyone who has already crossed the finish line by writing the 100th page on their scripts, I offer a hearty congratulations!

But if your page count is still a little bit less than 100 pages, you shouldn’t feel left out. There are still many hours left in the contest, plenty of time to add some more pages to your count. But even if you are at page 1, you definitely don’t want to quit today, no matter how far behind you are.

Sure, hitting 100 pages is great but if that is all you focus on, you’ll beat yourself up by the end of today if you haven’t hit that number. The point of this month is to challenge yourself to write more than you usually do so any amount is something to be proud of.

No matter how many pages behind you are, write your butt off today! Even if you only add 10 pages or so more to your count, you’ll end the day feeling like you accomplished a ton instead of feeling bad because you missed the 100. As long as you can sit back and honestly tell yourself that you tried your hardest to add as many pages to your count as possible today, you will still feel like a winner no matter what your final count. Even if you end this month short of the goal, you still wrote a good chunk of a new script which is more than what most people have done. And it gives you something to shoot for next year, to beat this year’s numbers.

Not to mention that it only takes most people about 1 to 2 hours to write 10 pages. You could almost do the whole 100 in one day at that rate. Even if what you write makes no sense whatsoever, just get those words down and you’ll be amazed at how fast the pages add up. Remember, you can always edit poor writing but you can’t edit a blank page so its better to get those ideas down, no matter how sloppily.

So remember, write write write! There is still plenty of time yet. The rest of us are rooting for you!

Image via Wikipedia

You offered to read your friend’s book. Or maybe it was a short story. Or a play. Either way, your friend wrote something and you promised to be a beta reader and give them some feedback.

Except that now you’ve changed your mind. Maybe you’ve since realized that you’re too busy and won’t have time to read it. Maybe the project is awful and you just can’t get through it. Maybe you just plain old forgot and now you’re totally embarrassed to admit it.

Hey, you know what, it happens! Sometimes life doesn’t go exactly how we plan it. But if you need to back out of your critiquing commitments, here’s a few tips for dealing with this change of heart without being a jerk about it.  Read more. . . »