Hey there again, writers. I know I’ve already lobbied for the awesomeness that is Camp NaNoWriMo, but let me give you a breakdown of the tools that are available now that the site is live and you can actually log in and all that.
If you’re unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo in general, the typical tools available involve a word count tracker which shows your progress over time and in comparison to your ultimate goal of 50,000 words. This site seems to be a little bit less streamlined, but I don’t really mind because everything is inundated with a kitschy summer camp theme. And for someone like me who never actually went to camp as a child and never lived out the desire to be the sassy, leather jacket-wearing Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, a summer camp-themed writing website sounds pretty damn awesome.
If you’re the sort of person who, when looking online at car websites, likes to read a list of available features instead of the reviews of previous satisfied or unsatisfied buyers, here you go:
- Friend system—befriend other users and creep on their novel progress, too.
- Mail—receive/send messages from/to other users.
- Peptalks—the admins of the site encourage you keep going and stay motivated.
- Profile—post an image, give age and location, silently pimp your personal website, and even tell others about your favourite noveling music, favourite authors, and “favourite camp activity.”
- Invite—if your friends aren’t on NaNoWriMo already, then you can bug them to join until they do, so that you’re not the only one in a writing craze this month.
- Novel—post your novel’s title and a synopsis to entice potential readers for your work when it’s finished.
If none of that is enough to make you want to join, and you’re already feeling the squeeze of being six days into July and not having started already, then allow me to sympathize and offer one final plea—I haven’t started either, and it’d be great to know there are others in the same boat. If you join now, you can add me as a friend (my username is Saxel), and make fun of my lack of progress throughout the next month. Think about it.
PS–if you don’t want to write, you could always just join and lurk around other novelists’ pages, and ask to read their stuff when they’re done if it interests you. You might just discover an unsung hero in writing. Food for thought.