NaNoWayFools
Yes, I have heard of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo to you shorthanders).
No, I am not doing it.
I heard of this exercise about three years ago and I was interested for about half a second, and then I gave it some good thought and wrote it off as Not For Me.
This has not changed. This is not GOING to change. Therefore, stop asking.
A novelist called Jon Evans has written a fantastic screed about how not to become a successful novelist, and his skewering of this NaNoWriMo business is right on target as far as my own reasons for not doing it are concerned. In a nutshell: "Writing is like anything else: if you try and do too much of it when you’re already half-drained, the quality of what you produce goes way down."
The rest of this essay is fantastic as well; I highly recommend you give it a good read. Jon tells it like it is here. "Becoming a writer" is not something that can be accomplished with mere gumption - you must have both talent AND the willingness to work hard. And you must write. There are dozens and dozens of how-to writing books that attempt to make it more complicated than that. Most of these books are written by embittered failed novelists, I note. Is this what "those who can't do, teach" means? Truthfully, being a writer is simple, but not easy. Writers write. It's just hard damn work combined with natural ability and imagination. You can't just make it happen. There are no easy fixes. A writer's soul does not thrive on any sort of prepackaged chicken soup.
I realize that some people use NaNoWriMo very effectively as a jumping-off point for a more serious writing venture, and others do it because it's just fun, it's a way to blow off some steam, and they don't anticipate or intend that the finished product will ever see the light of day. But for what I'm attempting to do - that is, see my own novel through to completion and hopefully get it published - it's not going to work.
So no, I am not doing NaNoWriMo. But yes, I am working. I am working at my own pace. It is probably not as fast as I should be working, but I'm doing it, and I'm attempting to do it well. If I don't come up with 50,000 words by December, I'll be okay with that.
As a matter of fact, I had 30 pages of early chapters that I recently slashed-and-burned into about 10. This may look like the opposite of progress to some, but I feel great about it.
No, I am not doing it.
I heard of this exercise about three years ago and I was interested for about half a second, and then I gave it some good thought and wrote it off as Not For Me.
This has not changed. This is not GOING to change. Therefore, stop asking.
A novelist called Jon Evans has written a fantastic screed about how not to become a successful novelist, and his skewering of this NaNoWriMo business is right on target as far as my own reasons for not doing it are concerned. In a nutshell: "Writing is like anything else: if you try and do too much of it when you’re already half-drained, the quality of what you produce goes way down."
The rest of this essay is fantastic as well; I highly recommend you give it a good read. Jon tells it like it is here. "Becoming a writer" is not something that can be accomplished with mere gumption - you must have both talent AND the willingness to work hard. And you must write. There are dozens and dozens of how-to writing books that attempt to make it more complicated than that. Most of these books are written by embittered failed novelists, I note. Is this what "those who can't do, teach" means? Truthfully, being a writer is simple, but not easy. Writers write. It's just hard damn work combined with natural ability and imagination. You can't just make it happen. There are no easy fixes. A writer's soul does not thrive on any sort of prepackaged chicken soup.
I realize that some people use NaNoWriMo very effectively as a jumping-off point for a more serious writing venture, and others do it because it's just fun, it's a way to blow off some steam, and they don't anticipate or intend that the finished product will ever see the light of day. But for what I'm attempting to do - that is, see my own novel through to completion and hopefully get it published - it's not going to work.
So no, I am not doing NaNoWriMo. But yes, I am working. I am working at my own pace. It is probably not as fast as I should be working, but I'm doing it, and I'm attempting to do it well. If I don't come up with 50,000 words by December, I'll be okay with that.
As a matter of fact, I had 30 pages of early chapters that I recently slashed-and-burned into about 10. This may look like the opposite of progress to some, but I feel great about it.
1 Comments:
I had so much fun with NaNoWriMo last year that I was so going to do it again this year. But I'm too bogged down with other forms of stress. My adoring fans will just have to wait another year for my second rambling, pointless, unpublished, 50,000-word novel.
- Daryl
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