I’m excited to announce my newest initiative: Badger Camp!
If you haven't heard, the National Novel Writing organization got caught up in a scandal last November involving accusations of volunteers grooming children, among other things. They shut down the forums and sent out an email saying they were working on it; and we didn't hear from them again until March 1st, which conveniently enough, is one month prior to the April Camp NaNo.
The update they sent, if you didn't read it, was fine, but less than satisfactory. Typically, when I read these things, I want the organization to own up to what happened and take responsibility for making changes. And to some extent, they did that. They admitted to being neglectful in properly managing volunteers and running background checks, and outlined some of the changes they'll be making.
However, they did not acknowledge the accusations, attempt to put rumors to rest, or even offer any information for when they would be addressing the accusations. It felt mostly like a way of getting back on the "good side" of their participants right before a big event.
Anyway, I had built NaNos into my writing life in a pretty significant way, but I won't be doing that anymore. So I had to come up with something else. There were a few things about NaNo I did like, and a few things I didn't. So some friends of mine and I decided to create our own event that creates some sense of community around writing, while also being distinctly different from NaNo.
Introducing: Badger Camp!
Having trouble staying motivated working on your writing goals? Want to be more consistent about working on said goals? Want to do a word count or page count push?
Badger Camp may be for you!
It's called Camp Badger based on my writing friends' tendency to send badger gifs to encourage each other to stay focused and keep working. Badger, badger, badger!
We are doing Badger Camp starting April 1st.
The rules are simple:
Set a goal!
Tell someone about your goal!
Track your goal!
Badger! Your friends, yourself, your cat!
Update your friends on your goal!
This is a choose-your-own-adventure model, so no need to try to hit 50k or write every day or anything like that. The idea is to pick a challenge that will push you, based on where you are at in your life, writing life, and all that jazz. And, because as you know, I'm not a fan of rules, you can do it however you want. Maybe you want a one-week goal. Maybe you want to do it in September. Maybe you want your cat to be your accountability buddy.
Whatever works for you, works for me!
We have also created some helpful tools, like writing bingo boards, a word tracker in Google Docs, and digital stickers!
I want to also call out my friends Beth Martin and Melisa Peterson Lewis for all their hard work helping me brainstorm, organize, and manage this event! It takes a team, and I've got a great one. <3
For more info on our event:
I set up a web page with all the info on it. Click here to read all about Badger Camp!
If you want to meet some other friends who are doing the event, you can click here to join my discord server!
If you want email updates on the event, you can click here to sign up for the Badger Camp newsletter.
If you want fun t-shirts that have badgers on them, click here. Any profits on sales of these items just goes to me. I'll use it to cover costs associated with running Badger Camp and/or my time in setting stuff up and organizing. Right now I'm doing it all for free of course, so any sales are helpful.
I'm all about meeting writing goals, and I like having friends to motivate me to keep pushing forward.
Join us for Badger Camp!
