Author Kat Yeh is your Camp Counselor this week. Find all Camp Care Packages in Breaking News throughout the month of July, or learn more about Camp NaNoWriMo!

1) Write what you feel: 

Some people say write what you know – I say write what you feel.

After all, if there’s one thing we all know, it’s how we feel. Don’t feel like writing today? Write about that. Somewhere in your story, there is a character who doesn’t feel like doing something (A cloud that doesn’t feel like making rain. A detective who doesn’t feel like solving their case.) Same with being bored or frustrated or anxious or just sad. Your emotions are your strongest writing allies. And when you write from a place of real feelings, your reader will feel it, too.

Writing Dare: Spend 5-10 minutes journaling about how you feel. Be specific! Then, when you're finished, see if there's anything you wrote about yourself that you can borrow for a character in your story. 

2) Discover inspiration in your dreams:

Keep a notebook by your bed to write down anything you remember from your dreams. Even just feelings or images. Dreams are what happens when your brain free associates new information with the stuff it has in storage. It isn’t worried about what anyone might think of what it comes up with. It’s just putting images and ideas together in random ways. Trying out things for future use. A lot of famous books have come from dreams. Experiment with thinking and writing about your story in your notebook before you go to sleep. And see what happens.

Writing Dare: Before you go to sleep, spend 5 minutes writing or doodling about your story in a notebook. Leave the notebook by your bed, and when you wake up, spend another 5 minutes writing down any dreams you can remember. Maybe it will lead to new ideas for your story!

Kat Yeh is the award-winning author of middle grade novels, The Way to Bea and The Truth About Twinkie Pie (an NPR Best Book of 2015 written during NaNoWriMo!) from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and picture book, The Friend Ship, from Disney-Hyperion—as well as others. Kat currently lives with her family in Philadelphia, PA. Learn more at katyeh.com P.S. You pronounce her last name YAY! Follow @yehface on Twitter.

What's up at Camp?

• #CampNaNoAdvice Tweet-chat — Monday, July 8, 3 PM PDT (Your Time Zone) — Join our Camp Counselors! Ask ‘em your questions and get some answers.
  
  
• Need some Camp Pep this weekend? Find the key to your creative heart with today's blog post.
  
  
• Check out the Camp NaNoWriMo Calendar to stay up to date on what's happening, including Virtual Write-Ins every Wednesday at 1 P.M. Pacific!