Lauren van Vliet, author

Camp NaNoWriMo, April 2020 edition, wrapped up last week. It’s similar to regular NaNo in November, except during Camp, you set your own writing goal. I set mine low at 30,000 words (compared to the 50,000-word goal during NaNo) because April was supposed to be crazy busy with ministry and life things. But I planned to participate in Camp because I promised a friend I would.

And then Covid-19 hit.

I shudder when I say this, but it really has been an unprecedented time (not because I’m over exaggerating, but because it’s become a cliché)

Like most people, this is my first time living through a world-wide pandemic, so I really wasn’t sure how it would impact my life in general, let alone my creativity and writing goals. In all honesty, I was a little worried that this would be one change too many, and I would shut down. But I leaned into the Camp goals, just to see what would happen.

And I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Anytime you sit down to practice, you learn new things and refine your skills. Lots of that happened during Camp NaNo. Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that I can stay home and write.

That might sound a little weird, but stay with me.

Although for most of my life it’s been a dream to publish a novel, I’ve often had a hard time seeing myself as a real writer, otherwise known as a professional author. I’m not quite sure what professional authors do that I’m not doing (i.e. sitting down to write), but that’s imposter syndrome for you.

Instead, I always felt like an amateur, like this was something I just did on the side as a hobby.

Deep down, there was a fear that I was going to run out of things to write about. Eventually, I would wring myself dry, and my writing hobby would be over before I did anything with it.

But in the middle of March, the Covid-19 restrictions in my province forced me to stay home most of the time, which gave me ample time to write.

Sure, I was still doing ministry stuff (as part of my full-time position), which involved leaving the house from time to time, but instead of binging Netflix or stress baking, I wrote. I began journaling most mornings (similar to Julia Cameron’s morning pages), and I worked on my NaNo project.

I didn’t finish the month with a huge word count (probably because I didn’t count the journaling – those words are just for me), but I also didn’t finish it feeling burned out (like I have when doing previous NaNos in November). In fact, the words were flowing very nicely. Towards the end of the month, I even started having ideas for blog posts again, and the desire to work on flash fiction came back.

At the end of one month I’m certainly not a professional author in that sense that I’m regularly publishing novels. I am enjoying the creative buzz in my life right now, and that’s far more important for overcoming imposter syndrome than, say, having a published novel, any day.