At long last, the sun is shining more and birds are finally singing outside my bedroom window in the morning. Yes, spring has sprung! I hope that spring has showed up in your area as well. Something that stereotypically comes along with warmer weather, opening your windows, and airing out your house is spring cleaning. When the winter is finally at its end, it’s nice to dust things off and clean up a bit after being cooped up for so long. For us writers, spring cleaning might also mean digging back into old projects and reopening them.
For those of you who don’t know, April is Camp NaNoWriMo month. Camp NaNoWriMo is basically an outgrowth of National Novel Writing Month, for writers, authors, and novelists who want to write during a different month. For some folks, November — when National Novel Writing Month takes place — might not be ideal. If you find that April is a better time, you might want to consider checking out Camp NaNoWriMo. You can set your own word/page goal, you can talk with fellow writers, and maybe do some spring cleaning on one of your recent writing projects.
The great thing about both National Novel Writing Month and Camp NaNoWriMo is that they offer pep talks from authors and writers who have participated in the programs before. These pep talks often contain some great insight and advice. I stumbled upon this “spring cleaning” concept in a pep talk from author and video personality Nika Harper. In her pep talk, Nika says:
“Now is the perfect opportunity to clean and organize that mental shelf. By the time April rolls around, we get it in our minds to do some “spring cleaning” anyway, and it can actually work out for the creative parts of our lives, too…Our lives are busy, and April is always a busy month, but why not indulge? You can treat yourself to a writing vacation where you visit a project you love, make time with it, get to know it. Tell its stories, tell your own stories. Enjoy. The fun is in the attempt.”
Like Nika says here, life can get pretty busy. Maybe you were working and running full tilt throughout the winter. Now as the sun is coming out and temperatures are getting warmer, you find that you have some time to devote to creative pursuits. If that’s the case, check out Camp NaNoWriMo! If you’re not interested in Camp, create your own, informal writing goals for the month of April and see what you can accomplish!
– Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
