NaNoWriMo
October 4, 2007
November is National Novel Writing Month, the month in which a large group of masochistic writers try to bleed 50,000 words of utter rubbish from their over-caffeinated minds. I’m considering participating.
I’d completely forgotten about NaNoWriMo until Struggling Writer mentioned it in his last post. In the past I’ve thought about taking part, but it always seemed like a waste of effort to me. The final product, should the writer actually finish, is not likely to be salvageable. I couldn’t justify wasting that much time writing something I probably wouldn’t ever be able to use, when I could be writing something with the hopes of it being publishable.
And here I am, six years after first hearing about NaNoWriMo, with nothing written. My plan was obviously flawed.
Most writing books or courses will tell you that, in order to get any amount of writing done on a first draft, the writer must first silence his inner editor. I have a terrible time with this. My inner editor is a large, sweaty beast of a man with a voice amplifier in one hand and a dripping red pen in the other, screaming at me through cigar-clenching teeth. He’s arrogant and nearly impossible to ignore. If nothing else, this might be a good way to exorcise him.
While there is a good chance the outcome will be awful, there’s always a chance the final product will be decent enough to continue to a full length book after some editing. I think it will be interesting to see where this takes me, to see what tiny glimpses of literary brilliance I catch. The few times I really let myself go while writing, there were small moments that really surprised me.
I think a deadline, even an arbitrary one, will help motivate me to actually sit down and type. I’ll decide in the next week or so whether to attempt this.
This post is a perfect companion to the one I wrote last night. Did you read my mind? :)
I agree that quieting the inner critic is big as well as the deadline with nanowrimo. I bet you would write good stuff, too.
Excellent post, by the way.
Comment by strugglingwriter — October 4, 2007 @ 5:24 am
Thanks Writer,
Hopefully I can read your mind a little more to help pad my word count… :)
Comment by Rob — October 4, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
Know what? You and I should be each other’s support network. I haven’t participated since college, when I turned out the most horrible thing ever written. I think my hard drive crashed just so the world would never see this “manuscript,” pronounced like, “Man, you SCRIPT,” only “script” should be “suck.”
Was that too much of a stretch?
Comment by mb — October 4, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
I personally think you should give it a try. You might surprise yourself and find that the 50,000 word exercise in torture you’ve produced (after 30 days of caffeine and drug fueled typing) might produce threads of future novels with great promise. But coming from a person whose only finished one story in her life… maybe you should take my advice with a grain of salt… tossed over your shoulder to ward off bad luck.
For the record it’s been forever since I’ve posted a comment here. Years even. I’m glad to see that you’re still doing the blog thing and haven’t given up on being a writer.
Comment by Tiffany — October 4, 2007 @ 9:01 pm
I think our inner editors would make good companions :P If you do decide to do the NaNoWriMo, then best of luck and remember - if you want to edit a small part of what you wrote one day, you could always just cheat a bit ;)
Comment by Soph — October 5, 2007 @ 4:27 am
-Too much of a stretch? Pure genius, more like it, mb. I think a support group is an excellent idea. I’d definitely be into doing that. We shall call ourselves the manusucks.
- Hey Tiffany, it’s been a while! Great to see you’re back and writing again.
- Thanks Soph, I’ll keep that in mind. :)
Comment by Rob — October 5, 2007 @ 11:19 pm
I’ve done NaNo three times now… and only succeeded once: the first time I did it.
However, I’m half-thinking I might participate again this year….
Comment by Suzie — October 8, 2007 @ 10:01 am
A NaNo-veteran! Good to hear you’re thinking of having another go at it, Suzie.
Comment by Rob — October 9, 2007 @ 12:20 am