Insecure Writers' Support Group (IWSG) is a
really awesome meme that you should be doing along with the rest of us
writers. Unless you truly are happy with your writing and don't feel the
need to vent about your insecurities because they don't exist for you. But, really.... Don't they?
IWSG is hosted by Captain Ninja Alex at his blog, Alex J. Cavanaugh.
IWSG is hosted by Captain Ninja Alex at his blog, Alex J. Cavanaugh.
I happily report that I have won Camp NaNoWriMo from last month! It's really great to have a big chunk of my novel WIP completed and I'm well underway to finishing it.
Somehow, by some miracle, my writing partner Lan Chan decided to join me at Camp NaNo and we proceeded to create our own private cabin. These cabins feature a chat system, like instant messaging, and we found we were the only ones chatting with each other at first. I suggested we go to the NaNo forums and ask if anyone else wanted to join our cabin, and voila! Some people came along and we had a full cabin after about a week.
We all bonded so well with each other during the month, we were able to boast of having one of the few cabins that was active and exciting. Most people complained in the forums about how boring and dead their cabins were. Since we found so much strength in our numbers, we decided to keep the magic alive after our cabins would close, and now we are all still chatting everyday in our very own Skype group! Now we have a good half of us to still encourage each other and hold each other accountable.
I can't say enough about how important it is to declare your writing intentions and have other people keeping you honest. It made a big difference that everyone could see if I was falling behind in my writing, or if I was keeping up a good pace. It's far too easy to fall off and not get your work done when no one else really cares, or just doesn't really know what you're doing in the first place.
Anyway, I had no idea Camp NaNoWriMo this year would change my writing habits forever. I needed something like this, so I'm happy it worked out so incredibly well. Thanks to Lan and all my other cabin mates for your support (Denise, Toni, Olivia, Jess & Allison). I think we can be so much more sure that we will accomplish our publishing dreams because we all have each other to rely on.
