Are You Prepared For Camp NaNoWriMo?

April, July, and November have a funny way of creeping up on me. And despite what I do, I tend to feel surprised when Camp NaNo is finally underway. I refuse to be caught unawares this year. When July 1st rolls around, I hope I’m as prepared as I can be.

I usually “prepare” by thinking about Camp and what I want to accomplish but not doing anything about it. Then when it’s time to write 50,000 words, I’m in no shape to because I’m lucky if I even write 500 words in a day.

Maybe I should go in with a better plan this time around. A more concrete plan rather than just “write a novel in one month”.

I’m planning to edit more this July. I’ll still write creatively because I can’t not write. But I’d like to focus on editing old stories or perhaps a previous novel. I haven’t decided yet. That’s the problem. I’m indecisive.

I still have four days to figure it out. So do you. Unless you live on another planet. Or you’re reading this many hours later.

Are you prepared? Camp is almost here!

15 Things I Learned From Writing My Law Exam

Let me tell you, I learned more writing that one exam in two hours than I did in one five-month semester. But for the sake of this post, I’ll write in second person point of view.

1. Whatever you do, don’t panic.
2. Between writing neatly and finishing on time, the latter is more important.
3. Under a time limit, you cannot beat around the bush.
4. Pardon the redundancy, but getting to the point might be the difference between passing and failing.
5. Repeating yourself (i.e. saying the same things over and over again) does not make you seem smarter than you really are.
6. Over-studying is much better than under-studying.
7. Feeling prepared makes you feel more relaxed.
8. Do your best to focus on your own paper during the exam.
9. Watching others either creates a sense of ease or a sense of unease; a risk you most likely don’t want to take.
10. Having a heap of knowledge is useless if you cannot apply your wisdom accordingly.
11. Trying to be fancy won’t win you any extra points.
12. You’d be surprised at how much you know (or don’t know).
13. Failing an exam will not result in the sky falling or the world ending.
14. Despite your best intentions to do well, sometimes teachers will throw you a curve-ball from left field.
15. Cramming forces you to memorize but in most subjects, a deep understanding of the material is more important.

Can I just say I’m guilty (see I’m applying my law vocabulary seamlessly here) of 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15?  Yep that’s right: I panicked, beat around the bush, repeated myself, under-studied, focused on things aside from my exam, watched others like a fool, tried to be fancy, and crammed as much of the course as I possibly could into my tiny head. Oh yeah, I’m probably guilty of number 13 too.