NaNoWriMo is Uponxt Us
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Remember, Remember [...] November!
It’s almost November, which means WRITING!
(What, you thought it meant football and turkey dinners? Pshaw!)
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is in November, and with just a few days to go until the big day, I’d like to make my yearly plug in favor of the event.
What Is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo is writing a “novel” (50,000 words) in a single month.
NaNoWriMo is a website dedicated to helping folks find other people doing the same crazy thing.
NaNoWriMo is nonprofit, though they need donations to keep them afloat (can you imagine the web bandwidth expense ALONE?)
NaNoWriMo is insane.
NaNoWriMo is the BEST, FASTEST way for you to learn very important lessons about WRITING and YOURSELF.
NaNoWriMo is what you make of it.
Why Do I Advocate NaNoWriMo?
I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Why, then, would I recommend it to others?
I have done NaNoWriMo twice.
I have “won” (finished on time with the required word count) each time.
I have not gotten publishable-quality writing out of either of them, despite beginning with solid story ideas.
I have learned more from NaNoWriMo than I have from any other writing endeavor I’ve done, with the exception of the Holly Lisle courses (which I would not have been prepared for, had I not done NaNoWriMo first.)
In no other way can a writer learn SO MUCH about motivation, the importance of consistency in word count, the difficulty of scraping time together to do writing – these are all obvious lessons from NaNoWriMo.
In addition, however, you also learn about the writer’s EMOTIONAL arc during the writing of ANY project, no matter how long it is.
Pre-NaNoWriMo, you can practice your story building and planning (and I’ve written a very lengthy series of posts about NaNo Prep here), which you can immediately poke holes in and learn lessons about what works and doesn’t work for you while you write.
- There’s the puppy love, when you’re so excited to write your story that you fairly wiggle with impatience for midnight-oh-one to roll around on November first.
- There’s the blush of romance as you write the first week, falling in love with your world and characters.
- Then there’s the onset of doubt in week two. Something’s wrong. It’s not as wonderful as it used to be, and you’ve already hit a few snags and your friends are all going out dancing or playing games or something and it would be awfully nice to take a break from this writing thing.
- And then the terrible, awful week three. You suck, your writing sucks, this book sucks, and you might as well give up now because you’re lucky you can even spell the word “the” correctly and you’re the WORST writer in the history of the WORLD and you should just set fire to your manuscript right now to save the world the awful terribleness that is your manuscript. (Everyone I know goes through this stage. I went through it with my Unicorn short story, and that’s not even CLOSE to the size of a novel.)
- At long last, week four. The end is in sight. You’re close, you’re almost there. You just have to keep going, keep typing, keep moving forward. You’ve learned to leave the broken stuff alone and now you grit your teeth, grimly forging toward that end goal.
- When it’s all over, you stop and survey your surroundings, bleary-eyed like a child awakened from a nap. You’ve done it. You’ve won. You’ve learned valuable lessons and you’ve got your shiny badge image from the NaNo folks proclaiming you a winner…but you know that being finished with this first draft doesn’t mean you’re DONE. If you want this to be consumable by other people, it will need to be revised. Edited. Sections ripped out, new sections added in.
The work is only just beginning.
THESE lessons – these are the ones that you can only learn by tackling a long-term writing project, even one that’s doomed to failure (and not all NaNo novels are doomed. There are a handful that have gone on to be published through traditional publishing houses).
NaNoWriMo May Be For You If …
- … you find yourself constantly starting and stopping projects, never getting past the point where you fall out of love with it. NaNo will teach you the value in pushing past that stage and shoving aside that negative emotion.
- … you tell yourself you never have time to write, even though you secretly know that you DO have time to write, if only you had a reason to spend that time writing. NaNo will give you a reason that you can share with other people as to why you need to set time aside to write.
- … you have a great idea for a novel that you’ve always kind of wanted to kick around, but you’ve been afraid to get started. NaNo will give you a reason to start.
- … you have a hard time just PLAYING with writing. NaNo will give you a sandbox and a box of finger paints to play with. Don’t like the result? You’re not carving your story into stone tablets, here. Even glorious, amazing, fantastic artists have sketchbooks with experiments that never see the light of day. Why should writers be any different?
- … you want to dip your toes in a different genre or style than you’re used to, and you need an excuse to give yourself the time to do it. NaNo doesn’t care how you write, they just want you to WRITE! (Incidentally, one of the lessons I learned from NaNo is that I am not a romance writer – not even a paranormal romance writer!)
- … you’re new to writing and want to experience the highs and lows of the creative process, AND you want to learn those lessons FAST. They say you have to write a million words before you can write good ones.
NaNoWriMo Haters
I see a lot of people who dislike NaNoWriMo, for various reasons.
“Why waste your time, if you KNOW you’re only writing crap?” they ask.
Time spent learning is never wasted, in my opinion. We, as a society (if not a species) have placed such a high value on SUCCESS, and kick ourselves and others for even the faintest whiff of FAILURE.
Assuming, as one might, that not finishing NaNoWriMo OR finishing but with fifty thousand useless and crappy words is FAILURE — well, this makes me very, very sad.
I’ve seen haters who seem to think that folks who spend time on NaNoWriMo cross an invisible line between “reader” and “writer”, somehow transforming into a being who no longer buys books and contributes to the monetary publishing system. (This was only ONE blog post that got a lot of chatter last year, and I won’t honor them with a link).
My response to that particular line of “logic” is that writing is HARD. If it wasn’t, everyone would be writing. EVERYONE seems to think they’ve got a book in them, though. NaNoWriMo invites them to write it. It doesn’t expect failure – instead, it does everything in its power to encourage and foster success.
I can’t imagine that anyone who truly attempts NaNoWriMo would come out of it with anything except a better appreciation for the process that went into making that book they finished in a few hours and chucked aside.
And personally? I think anyone who loves books enough to write them must certainly also love to read them. <3
Your Turn
Anyone planning on NaNo this year? Feel free to link to your NaNo profile so others can find you, if you like!
Is this your first NaNo, or are you an experienced writer? Are you scared, excited, giddy, ready?
What are you planning on writing (feel free to comment with your “elevator pitch” about your story, I’d love to hear it!)
As for the rest of us, if you’ve done NaNo in the past, what did you learn? Do you recommend it for other writers?
Like you, I learned a lot from NaNo, last year as a participant and “winner”; the year before, as a cheerleader for you, Bre, and Iris.
Also, like you, I won’t be participating this year. But I have a fresh set of pom-poms I’ll be waving for everyone who is taking part.
And, I agree completely with everything you said above. I learned so very, very much about writing last year and about myself as a wannabe-writer. In fact, the amount one can learn from 30 days in November can be a little (well, a lot) intimidating.
However, if you’ve never written anything more ambitious than an extra page on that high school or college term paper, or a two-page “flash fiction” effort, and if you really think you are a writer, then challenge yourself via NaNo. Go on: I dare you! :)
Steve Hall´s last post ..National Punctuation Day: The Mechanics of Writing Dialogue
*picks up her own pompoms and waves them around*
Steve – thanks for your post on punctuation of dialogue, I hope I got most of mine right!
I need to print it out and post it on my wall!
NaNoWriMo has always interested me. I’m not a writer. I have no writing aspirations, but I’ve wrritten short stories, RP’ed and what not.
I sorta want to do it, just to be able to say at the end “ha! I did it! i can write lots of words!” So let’s go through your check list:
NaNoWriMo May Be For You If …
… you find yourself constantly starting and stopping projects…writing projects? no, not really
… you tell yourself you never have time to write, even though you secretly know that you DO have time to write… no, I don’t even have enough time to blog like I want to. or do all the crafty crafts. and I’m STILL not going to bed at a ‘reasonable’ bedtime.
… you have a great idea for a novel … nope
… you have a hard time just PLAYING with writing… sure! I think I’d find great joy in writing, but just haven’t spent much time to find out.
… you want to dip your toes in a different genre or style than you’re used to… NA
… you’re new to writing and want to experience the highs and lows of the creative process… Yeah! this sounds awesome!
2/6 positives. Doesn’t sound like this is the year for me. But I’m still a big fan of the movement. And I would still love to read some of the resulting efforts ~hint hint~
Ah, perhaps I should have specified. If you answer yes to ANY of those, then NaNoWriMo may be a good choice for you! It doesn’t have to be a majority vote. =]
Also, I think you’d write AWESOME books.
aw man, come on! I was totally hoping you’d be all “oh yes, a reasonable bedtime, I’m a big fan of those.” And you’re not helping, willydd3!
I could probably write on the commute home from work. Is 2,778 words in 40 minutes possible? without an outline or plot?
*grin* If your commute involves YOU driving, I’d advise against it. ;)
You could always aim at a smaller word count – 250 words per day is VERY doable.
Justin drives unless he’s super sleepy or we need to drive seperately.
250 wordds for 18 days is only 4,500. that’s not even 10%! And if I’m goign to do it, I’m going to do it to WIN!!!!!!!
Outlines and plots are definitely optional. I’d love to see what you do just starting with a character and the plot of “hijinks ensue”
*grin*
Maybe I can pull a Tolkein and just include a lot of really long winded song lyrics…
You could write this as like … the Odyssey for children. It’s the bedtime story that never ends! (And you could read it for Elizabug. And yes, I’m going to randomly nickname your child until something sticks.)
Tami’s right – a single ‘yes’ means you should join in!
I’m going to do NaNo this year for the first time. I only learned about NaNo in January (I think), so the whole idea is new to me. I’ve kicked around ideas and written a page or two of stuff, but never finished anything (until the unicorn short story for Saucy Ink).
I planned to join since the day I found out about it, but only had a rough idea of what to write. In my usual fashion, I thought that was good enough, I’d just wing it! (I never claimed to be smart)
Luckily, I stumbled upon Tami’s prep course much by accident, and that’s when I learned the value of preparation. Now I can really see how my idea could possibly be turned into a novel. I have a lot of plot holes to fill (“page three” of my outline is still almost empty!!!!!), or maybe I’ll just have to ignore them for now. That NaNo clock never stops you know!
Whether or not I can make the time to type so many words in such a short time is yet to be seen, but I have already learned invaluable lessons in the process.
Up until yesterday I was dying to get started. Last night I decided it was stupid and I could never do it. I talked myself out of writing altogether. (Coincidentally, I was having trouble resolving issues in the unicorn story! Huh – just a coincidence, really) This morning I realized I should give it my best shot. With everything I’ve already learned, even a “failure” would be a worthwhile effort.
Sorry to ramble, but I am excited!
http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/willydd3
<3 Woot, excitement! I know what you mean - these last few days are stomach-churning, aren't they?
You'll do awesome, I already know (having gotten to READ said Unicorn story. <3)
I'll be there (along with the rest of the saucy crew) to help bolster you when the road gets tough!
Meeeeeeeee!! And this year I have a plot and a world and, you know, all that other stuff.
I think this is going to turn out much better than last year.
*fingers crossed* Good luck and have fun! *high five*
Thanks! *high five back*
Oh yes.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/falcon21893
Please do not judge my synopsis. I guess I should say I have a plot-ish…
Oooh, I think the synopsis is intriguing! Love the lion-head ring bit, that sounds great!
Haha thanks again! That actually came out of a dream in which I thought I had lost my class ring and I was looking for it desperately, and then I found it and it had a lion head on it (the lion is my college’s mascot, although the ring was from high school).
Sometimes my subconcious is amazing, and I kind of wish I could write an entire novel while hypnotized/asleep
That’s awesome!
That interaction with the subconscious is the baseline for Holly Lisle’s How To Think Sideways course and hoo boy, is it harder than it seems!
So worth it, when I’m able to get that communication flowing, though!
NaNo is my favorite thing and also pretty much the only time I can convince myself to write. I’m super excited for this year, like I am every year! :D
Pike´s last post ..There Is Something Big And Important Happening This Weekend!
ha! I am unsurprised, and I can’t wait to read this year’s offering!
This year is going to be my first time at NaNoWriMo and I must say I’m very excited =D I was going to do it last year but personal problems got in the way and, also, I didn’t think I was prepared mentally and dedication-ly to do it. This year is a whole new year and i’m super ready! =D (and will probably pass through all those phases she has written fan fiction before)
Woot! Good luck. Fanfic is GREAT practice (and great fun)
Woot! I’m ready to go!
I learn more about how I shouldn’t write, than how I should. Year 1 & 2 I was in college, and we had finals in November – I lost. Year 3 was a perfect storm, I love that piece, and I’m still editing it but it just fell out of me and onto the computer screen. Years 4 & 5 were … well I won them, but the writing was a disaster, and not the feel good kind of disaster either. No more complete plans for me, no more segmenting as I go. Write it all in one big doc and then divide in editing: that’s what I learned from the success of 3 and the failures of 4 and 5.
This year’s plotting is finished (a loose plot) after a last minute tailspin in which I discovered …. No you have to read it in February (December is rest, and January is editing).
I plan out the beginning and then a couple of important points, and I know the climax and the final scene that I’m aiming for. But I let my fingers fill it in as I go.
And, no one else has asked, so I felt the need to: Why aren’t you doing it this year? You don’t have to answer of course.
Casi´s last post ..Speech Contest Prep
*grin* Learning what doesn’t work is at least as valuable as learning what DOES.
Ouch on finals!!! (HUGE sympathy – I always got bad sick during finals week to boot!)
Heck yes on the perfect storm! *high five* Let me know when it’s edited! :D
On the segmenting vs big dog – have you tried Scrivener (mac) or PageFour (windows)? They give you the best of both worlds on that.
Bless you for giving months for editing and finishing! <3
This year, I'm not doing it because this year is my learning year. By which I mean, this is the first year where I put on the brakes and said, "Okay, there's a lot to learn and you need to focus on THAT".
So 2011 is the last of my valid excuses for not seriously working on a novel.
My lesson from last year is that NaNo is too hectic for me with my job (November is PCI Compliance month and I am the de facto PCI Compliance expert – feel free to laugh if you know what that means, I won't take it hard.) I was able to complete the wordcount, but I wasn't happy with my quality of writing – and I am at the point where if I slow down, my first draft is hugely better.
So one of the lessons I learned from NaNoWriMo is that I don't write well under those conditions. I know a ton of writers who need heavy deadlines in order to produce. Heavy deadlines apparently give me hives. *grin*
My plan instead is to develop an app (which I realize just now I only posted about on G+) which will allow me to make EVERY month a NaNoWriMo of my own choosing. So, for example, I may choose 250 words per day as my baseline, and have NaNo style wordcount tools to keep me on track and validate my progress. (I probably won't start that low, but you get the idea).
Once I get THAT done, I'll be joining NaNoWriMo next year under my own guidelines and rules – it's cheating, but I do want to join in the spirit of fun with all the writers who ARE doing it.
Hopefully that tiny novel of a comment makes sense. *laugh* My comment textbox is not long enough for my verbosity. *grin*
App? Sounds awesome – might this someday be available for public use?
Faith´s last post ..Why it took me so long to read The Hunger Games
That’s the plan! *fingers crossed*
*fingers and toes crossed* Good luck!
I hate you, Tami Moore!
I just finished Blue Moon (which you say has “only a spark”) and I loved it! However, it took some serious time away from my NaNo prep. I’m still staring at some gaping holes in my plot and they are not filling themselves. THEN YOU GAVE ME STAINED! Have you no shame? I’m already getting sucked into this novel that you say is “terrible,” and I’m losing more time. I need to delete the file and erase the links or I’ll never get my plotting done!
/hand hovering over DEL
Looks like it’ll be a lot of pantsing for me in November!
That’ll be me burning a blazing trail of fire across the November sky!
P.S. I don’t hate you at all (in case you didn’t figure that out!) I wouldn’t even be doing NaNo if not for your invaluable help. I just hope I can write something half as good as what you have written and called “crap!”
P.P.S. I thnk the app sounds great, and something that would fit into my life better as well.
See, Tami? It’s not just me. <3
<3 to both of you. *lovemuffins*