Spring Write That Darn Bookcamp!

Writing Life Spring Write That Darn Bookcamp!

Level
Mixed
Basic and Premium Members Prices
FREE for Premium Members / $40 for Basic Members (your payment will be applied to your $40 Premium Membership)
Category
  1. Bootcamp
Are you a procrastinator in need of motivation?

Hate writing alone? If having Drill Sergeants screaming in your inbox sounds like fun, you are in the right place!

Your Spring Write that Darn BookCamp 2018 Mission: 50,000 words.

We'll break you into teams of no more than ten recruits, together you will have your own section of the Savvy Authors website to use for brainstorming, inspiration, encouragement, and virtual crying.

To keep your team motivated, we'll host writing sprints in the Savvy Chatroom.

Spring Write that Darn BookCamp is all about writing that new first draft. You write DAILY and you report back to your team on words written. Your group totals will be calculated at the end of BookCamp and the team with the most points will win a workshop credit for each member who completes the month.
Other events or classes in this series
Spring Now Edit! Bootcamp


check out the reviews from our November Bootcamp!


  1. Maureen Bonatch


    Having the a monthly calendar of sprint times, double word count days and the list of daily bonus questions in prior years enabled me to plan better and not spend so much time searching around on the computer.
    I liked being able to report numbers on the spreadsheet, because I don't like having to chase people for word counts etc, but perhaps if there was a way to show who reported and within the team page.
    I agreed to be captain but then we lost over half our team (from 10 to 4)- hopefully it wasn't due to my 'captaining' ;) i spent a lot of time trying to track down team members to see if they were still participating, because I didn't know who was reporting each day.This added extra to do on top of the word count I was trying to get in.
    I do love the Savvy bootcamp and am looking forward to next year.​

  2. Celia Breslin


    Well organized and fun. RJ is the best! Tamsen, too!​

  3. lrdavis


    For me there were more glitches with this event.

    1. The start was rougher: The pre-notifications didn't happen. I didn't receive any or I would have responded immediately. Also, the set-up time seemed short and there didn't seem to be as many sign ups or newbies, so the energy wasn't happening at the front end of NaNo- boot camp.

    2. Within the teams, there wasn't team building at first, since we entered our scores separately and had no interaction in the forums. Of course about mid second week that began to change and we started having Daily postings of encouragements and we had a watercooler that we added, but it wasn't until the number postings changed and we could see each other's numbers that we could really interact with each other. e.g some one had a great word count--two or three would atta girl them and comments would stream in. Lots of energy and interaction. This brought people into the threads more regularly.

    Hence from that moment on, this boot camp became AWESOME!!! Our team ROCKED out. We didn't know who was writing all the crazy wild numbers but we soon found out...we had a couple of power houses steaming away with word counts. It was fun. It was crazy and most important it was team building. We got to know each other as people. We interacted with each other as people...as writers. and as individuals. THAT is what makes a GREAT boot camp. BONDING! We bonded.

    3. There was no cross team interaction. In the past, we have had cross team challenges. A water cooler where we could post things -- grandbabies born or awards to children etc. -- and we bonded across the teams.

    If there were ways to interact across the teams, small competitions, or challenges--sprints? or awards given to one team on a given day, who has participation by all members?

    4. I like the idea of sharing knowledge. Writing tips. Especially at NaNo time. If every team had the responsibility for producing some tips in a common forum for all to learn. The team receives team points every posting they make. They could receive bonus points for every time they have a different team member post--that team member must be available that day to answer questions about the post that people might have, and provide links to the source so people can follow up and study more. But it helps everyone learn and it gives more team points and individual points.

    But over all I REALLY enjoyed this boot camp. While it started rough, the leadership team listened and made mid-course corrections that REALLY MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!!!! THAT IS FREAKING AWESOME. Even with the glitches in numbers and stuff, it made the latter part of the time of team building soooo much better, that it transformed this from a mundane boot camp with a so-so standing to a top 3 of nine boot camps ever. (I have to keep the ones with Riley and Angel on my top 2 because of partnering with them, not because of the boot camp).

    And I think we could coordinate the boot camps and SIGs into more permanent competitions--I've invited this group to join either the Nanolit SIG OR the KidLit SIG because we have had such a grand time.

    I think like Team Passion, we could actually develop a group that is ready pre-boot camp in the future. :) And we could develop more like it. A mystery group, a Science fiction/paranormal group etc.

    Perhaps we could try to do a membership campaign with a run for SIGs too.
    Thanks for asking You guys ROCKED.​



  4. Barbara Bates


    I took the rating system above to mean 1 is the best.

    I sent the below in as the answer to my daily challenge. I've copied it here.

    1. Set up a reference area where either articles, or experts' knowledge on different writing subjects and genres can be accessed if a question comes up while writing. Putting similar material together under section heads would make articles easier to find. I'm new to YA, and although I'm taking a class now, I had many questions while writing.

    This area can also be used by the Savvy membership in general at any time. Though, you may want to make it a premium member feature.

    2. Concentrate on making Nanowrimo have personal goals instead of the 50K goal. If someone is editing instead of writing, a 50K word count is way off track for that person. Allow people to keep track of their progress however, they like, and give them rewards if they make their goals.

    3. Having one overall winner can be modified to seeing if each person (or team) makes his/her own set goals. This, I think is a better way of successfully completing Nanowrimo.

    If you find any of these interesting, let me know. I just gave overviews of these ideas.
    ========​

  5. Denny Side


    I really enjoyed it. My team was supportive, encouraging and motivated me to do my best!​
Author
SavvyAuthors Events
Start date
Apr 1, 2018 at 9:00 AM
End date
Apr 30, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Registration end date
Apr 3, 2018 at 1:00 PM
Rating
4.09 star(s) 32 ratings

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Latest reviews

I was part of a great, supportive group. We cheered each other one. We posted support and commented on each other's post daily. I felt like a member of a team. It was wonderful.
Everybody in the thriller group dropped out. Someone was supposed to get back to me about moving to a new group, never did. I went on to work by myself
It started out well, but eventually everyone else fell by the wayside and I felt like I was writing all by myself, without the challenges and encouragement I had expected to get from the course. That said, I always work better when I have a deadline so I did manage to get more work done than I might have otherwise so, in that regard, it was a success. Would suggest though that the groups be bigger next time so when some members drop out of there are still a few who make it to the finish line together.
Love the bootcamps. Thank you RJ and everyone for making it happen. I didn't get 50,000 words, but I got over 30, 000. Happy writing Everyone.
This was my first year doing Bookcamp. I'd like to say I loved it as much as I love the classes, etc. However, even before the technical glitches, it just wasn't working well for me.

Here's some feedback for what it's worth.

1. When starting up - there were way too many threads going. It needs to be more streamlined so everyone can tell what's going on, especially those who are new to it. I really had a hard time figuring out what was going on and where.

2. Once started - there needs to be an easy way to tell where your group is. I wasted a lot of time just trying to figure this out.

3. There are still too many alternate threads once it got started. I ended up posting in the wrong spots twice which caused extra work for Lyn because she had to move them for me. There shouldn't be duplicate threads for the same thing or that look alike. And, if one is mistakenly made -- someone should delete the incorrect/extra one.

4. While I like the different aspects of the camp, it's just too much. If I had a job or small kids to take care of plus the writing -- there's no way I'd get anything else done. It was a struggle as it was. I'd prefer one place to list word counts. People can post their counts, along with comments, and questions and others can reply/encourage from there. All the extra -- if you have nothing else to do -- then that's great. But, the whole purpose of Camp NaNoWriMo is to get writing done. I struggled for a couple of weeks, mostly because everything was so confusing with so many different threads. I was interested in the camaraderie and encouragement/support to be given and received. The rest was - again - just too much clutter when it's hard enough just to get the words down daily.

Anyway - I know this has been going on for a long time before I came along and apparently others like all this. But, it just did not work for me. After I wasted a ton of time during the technical glitches, I finally gave up. I hated to let my teammates down, but I just couldn't keep trying to do things that I couldn't do.

I only gave it two stars instead of one, because of Lyn's encouragement and support. Without her, I'd have quit earlier.

Sorry.