I know many people who’ve signed up for the 2011 version of Nanowrimo in which they commit to write 50,000 words of a new project during the month of November. It’s all about encouraging writing, helping prospective or wannabe writers to see if there’s ‘a book in them.’ Or not.
The idea horrifies me. I’m not disparaging the dreams or expectations of others, but the concept of a self-imposed deadline fills me with dread. When I looked into the reality of Nanowrimo more closely, it got even worse. Don’t worry about editing; just write. Plenty of time to knock your efforts into shape after the end of the month. Well, fair enough, but there’s a suggestion here that it’s okay to write down any old rubbish, just to reach the goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month.
I violently disagree with that.
I realised long ago my own writing ‘system’ isn’t ideal. I lack the capacity to ‘just write something.’ If it’s not in my head, it won’t come out. I could have agreed this pact with myself and Nanowrimo, committed myself to writing a set number of words a day towards the goal of the magical 50,000, but I didn’t. The idea, for someone like me, is ludicrous. What about the days the muse deserts me? Do I write something anyway, just to ‘keep up?’ After all, it doesn’t have to be any good, does it? Knocking the words into shape – that’s a task for December onwards. No, I can’t do that: just type out my 1,666 words for the day and feel happy about keeping up with the deadline. If what’s in my head isn’t capable of being in the final version, I won’t even bother to write it down. What would be the point? To keep up with the target? Do me a favour!
Recently I started a new writing project. A new novel. So far this month I’ve written about 7,500 words. A rough draft, obviously, and very far removed from how I see the final version. If it gets that far. Too soon to say. Suppose this had been a Nanowrimo project. I’d be panicking by now, having fallen behind. I’d need another 42,500 words by the end of the month, three weeks left. Will I add 42,500 words by the end of the month? I doubt it. Will that matter? Not in the least.
Just thinking about writing 50,000 words to a set timescale fills me with dread. Suppose I did this. Then what? Yes, I’d have proved to myself I can write a predetermined number of words in a set time. Big deal. What else would I have? 50k words. Not a novel; barely half way to a novel. An unedited hodgepodge of words written under duress. Great. So, in December I’ll edit these words down to something worth keeping. Or not. Then what? I have three, yes three, projects of 50,000 words or more sitting unused and uncared for on my computer. I may or may not go back to them and work on them, expand them into a novel. Or I may decide the new child – that one with 7,500 words in the bank – will be the one worth bothering with. Maybe none of them. What I don’t want, don’t need is yet another project muddying the water.
If I write 50,000 words for Nanowrimo, I’ll have access to a vast support group, be chivvied along by people I’ve never met, receive invitations to meet up with my fellow writers to discuss progress. Agghh! Go away, stop bothering me. I’ll write what I want to write. When I want to write it. I don’t ‘do’ organised. Now bugger off and leave me alone, the urge to write is upon me. I may write 1,666 words today. I may not. I probably won’t write 1,666 words tomorrow. Or will I? Who knows? Certainly not me. The only thing I do know, with absolute certainty, is if I do write anything tomorrow it will not be merely to satisfy a commitment made a month or more ago to ‘just write something.’
You don’t get it, Jake – the point isn’t to ‘win’, the point is by signing up you get an entire month where people leave you alone so you CAN write
Once you say you’re doing NaNo all the distractions disappear for 30 days – which means I get more writing than usual done, no matter how many ‘countable’ words it turns out to be!
Interesting. I had of course seen the NaNo project and it does excite a lot of people. I try to write every day and usual manage between 500 and 1000 words in my blog serial and then other stuff comes along like an extra gift. Like you though I can’t write if there is nothing there. Yes writing regularly seems to exercise the writing muscles and at the very least it improves typing skills. I have come to regard the NaNo project as a club for people who like to write stuff and who like to reach set targets – I think that’s great I really do – Do I want to join – not just now thanks
I am ambivalent about the nano concept. I think it works for people who are so unsure of themselves as writers that they need to stimulus of doing it in a group, like ramblers. I saw a large group of ramblers on Sunday, heading out en masse and shuddered. Part of the reason I enjoy walking is doing it alone, with my husband or in the past, just with the dog. Walking with others, lots of others would spoil 90% of the pleasure for me.
I have written a novel in 17 days, 105k words, and it was the best thing I have ever written (and the two sequels included) but the book was already there in my head. A burst of hypergraphia and it was out. (and I do mean the condition hypergraphia) I can write a novel in anything from that amount of time, or in six weeks, or six months, or eighteen months. It varies a great deal. each brainchild is different.
As for deadlines, well, you must know the Douglas Adams quote about loving the sound they make as they go whooshing by. Last year I did a course in Instructional Design. I didn’t really want to do it but was offered a free place on the course to give even numbers. It was all online. Assignments had to be in by precise dates and even times, and I nearly went mad combining that with work and travelling for work. four hours of study a day was neccessary to get things done in time so that when I was away, i could forget about it totally. Even the exam was online. I passed, I got a distinction but it killed any further interest I may have had in the subject. The deadlines and the pressure to compete with the other participants (there was a compulsory online forum you lost points for if you didn’t participate) was so intense, it was not an agreeable experience.
Writing is for some a lonely pursuit, but when a real story has you by the throat, the people in it come alive and you are never alone, even if you want to be. I hope that those doing Nano enjoy it and benefit from it, but it’s not for me.
I agree. Hats off to those who want to do nanowrimo, but to me it would be an invitation to write 50k words of filler, 99% of which I’d delete or change in December, or more than likely, never return to. I suspect a lot of participants will be working on pre-existing projects, rather than having nothing on the slate for 1st November and nailing through, which in a way is cheating, but makes more sense from a productivity point of view.
Speed writing forces you to get the words down, but you have to consider the time you’ll have to spend correcting/deleting what you have. For me, it would be counter-productive. I’m also mega lazy
This is my first year doing nanowrimo and after a horrible few months were I couldn’t be bothered to write I am loving this ‘enforced’ writing…I’m writing under a pen name which makes me feel braver and spending time everyday with my characters is changing my opinion on them…after stresses of my normal day I look forward to jetting of (in my head) to somewhere exotic. By the end of Nov I’ll have the first draft of my 3rd novel…without nanowrimo I’d prob still be stuck in a rut. Will I do it next year? Depends if I’ve got another book in me! Regardless of whether you write as a group or prefer the peace of writing on your own the reality is, You Never truly Walk Alone
)
I disagree with the “any old rubbish” bit as well. I cannot and will not write something I can’t stand behind and be proud of. It might be ROUGH, but there’s a very big difference between a rough first draft of something with a heart of gold and something made of crap just to get a word count in.
That being said, I am doing NaNo again this year. The first year I did it, I did it to get back into the habit of writing every day. I managed to win and got a pretty damn good story started. That was two years ago, and I am still not entirely done with it. I have most of it in my head but I haven’t had the time (since figuring out my plot ending) to hammer it out.
Again, I won’t write just any old crap, which is why my first draft is taking so long. Of course, going back, rereading, and editing as I go is another reason. So I can agree with the “let the inner editor go” bit, at least somewhat. For me that means don’t go back obsessively and perfect what I have at the beginning before I’ve reached the end. That does not mean ignoring grammatical or spelling errors.
Last year I tried continuing that old story from 2009, and I failed miserably. Probably because I had no fracking idea where the story was going. I’ve since sat down and plotted it out.
THIS year, I’m using it as a tool to help me write again regularly, push myself (because I know I can do it, and I DO do this year round, when I have the time and motivation to crank out words), and get another story out that’s been rattling around in my brain for a year or so.
And this year, I sat down and planned out the plot before hand. You know what? It’s going much better this way! This is also my way of seeing how plotting varies from pantsing, since I’ve never really sat down and plotted a whole book out and made it happen. So far? I’ll be doing things this way again. No question.
Any old person can crank out 50,000 words of rubbish, sure. It takes a real writer’s heart to make it shine. And not everyone will have that. If you’re writing for yourself, sure, crank out just anything I guess. If you’re writing for just you, and you want to see if you can do it, this is the perfect time to try, because you know you have the community behind you to spur you on.
But I’m not just writing for me. I write to share, and I’m too perfectionistic about my work to let it slide. So, this book I’m working on? It will be ready to publish, but not for a long long time. Because I won’t take “good enough” for an answer. (Hell, I wouldn’t even post this without editing a bit, LOL)
Hi, I am one of the participants, as I was last year. I may never be a published writer, but as I tend to self edit as I go along, I doubt whether I am writing ‘any old rubbish.’ Yes, there is that motivation to reach the magic wordcount. However, for those of us (including me) who aren’t as disciplined as we should be, it helps to get that timetable ingrained – it’s 2pm therefore it’s time to write – I respect your viewpoint and you’re perfectly entitled to it. However, so am I entitled to my own. Take care and good wishes. Sx
Against better judgement, as a NaNoWriMo participant since 2007, I feel I should reply to this.
First off, we’re writing, this makes us more than wannabe writers, it makes us writers. Maybe not professional and paid writers, but writers all the same and there are many different kinds of writers (pet peeve, forgive the snark here).
Deadlines are the reality of life — especially the life of a paid writer. Self-imposing a deadline is hardly the thing that makes NaNo a strange concept. The length of time between commencing and the end of the deadline might be the weird part, as a month is not a long time to write in. But then, 50.000 words is not exactly the length of most novels these days either and most writers (paid, professional writers) will write roughly 700 to 2000 words a day if they’re serious about their work and want to pay their mortgage/feed their children/etc.
Do we all write 1666/1667 words every day? Hell no. Sometimes we might write 700 words. Sometimes we might write 2000, or even 4000. Or nothing at all! Funny how we’re exactly alike in that, huh?
The 1667 words per day is a guideline, the average you should hit to make that 50K at the end of 30 days.
Interesting to note: if you don’t make the daily word goal, or even the eventual word goal — we don’t get shot in the back alley for failing and there are no monkeys with tasers to punish us. This is a myth, fabricated by those who fear November Novelling Month.
In the end NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun above all else… if it isn’t, you’re doing it wrong.
You say: If what is in your head isn’t capable of being in the final version you won’t write it down…
I’m not saying that first drafts shouldn’t be thought out. Of course they should, but this is bullshit and you know it. If you don’t, I worry about the book advertised on the sidebar there (but no, I won’t buy it just to check and see if I’m right, sorry, my car broke down and it’s been a tight month!).
Every first draft is (at best) a little or (at worst) total crap and it takes many drafts to get something worth publishing and showing to beta readers. This is pretty much the consensus of every writer, ever.
So no matter how well you mull over the words you’re putting in your first draft, you’re going to edit the shit out of it anyway. Whether you take three months, a year, or just 30 days to go through the mundane effort of putting one word after the other.
NaNoWriMo is essentially a word vomit, a race to 50,000, yes. Does it always produce books worthy of publication? No. Do all manuscripts tell a story? Yes. Even if it’s crap and poorly written, it’s still a story. Even if it wasn’t worth 50,000 words and it has 35,000 words of filler about the MCs favourite brand of cereal. It’s a story!
I am not the only WriMo who has (as of yet) no interest in publishing anything that I’m writing or have written.I have no aspirations of being a professional writer. Sometimes it’s just nice to have the story be told.
It’s been hounding you for a while, it’s in your head, NaNoWriMo is a month in which you can get your story told. It’s as simple as quitting with the excuses, stop being a lazy schmo, get off the couch and get behind the computer to write it, write it in it’s all it’s ugly and disorganised glory.
At the end of the month, we can look back on an achievement.
That’s what NaNo is about.
It’s not about the word count, it’s not about the best (or worst) first draft you could possibly write, it’s not even about satisfying a commitment we made on November 1st, it’s not about a whole support group telling you to keep writing that you have to live up to, it is about none of these things.
It’s all about making an achievement and telling a story — regardless of whether people think it’s worth telling.
You know how much it sucks when you tell someone you’re a writer, and they go “And what’s your real job? What do you do for money?” As if being a writer is something so outlandishly crazy, it couldn’t possibly be a real job….
Non-writers don’t know what it’s like to be a writer.
On that same note: Non-WriMos really don’t know what it’s like to be a WriMo. And that’s okay too. All I’m saying is, don’t knock something until you’ve given it the old college try.
On a more personal note:
I never thought I would write anything remotely near novel length. I’ve written short stories my whole life, I actively RolePlay (Forum-based and Pen and Paper) and do cooperative writing on a daily basis, meaning I regularly write more than 5000 words a day and rarely less than 500 words a day. I write a lot, and yet writing a novel seems such a monumental and colossal undertaking that I can’t muster the will and discipline to keep at it for many months to produce the most classy and polished first draft I could possibly write.
Well…I probably could, but I don’t want to, as I have other writing projects that are more fun and less arduous in nature. NaNo cuts through the bullshit lies I tell myself of “can’t” and “won’t” and I end up doing more than I ever thought I could. Every year my stories for NaNo get better in quality. The first one was a disaster, this one I’m actually not completely ashamed of, so it’s helping me grow as a writer and it makes tackling big things so much easier and less scary.
NaNoWriMo decimates the self doubt that sneaks in at the big numbers like 15K and 30K that would make me give up if it was a 6 month project, because it’s only two more weeks! Then you’ll be doe. You can battle through this!
It can be done in 30 days. Why would I torture myself with self doubt for 6 months over something I never want to try and sell anyway?
When the day does come that I want to publish and sell something, I might not get discouraged and quit three months in when I hit that notorious part where you have to go from introduction to plot…
Thank you so much, SR, for taking the time and trouble to make such a comprehensive rebuttal of my views. I fully accept there are different views on this subject and would never knowingly disparage the opinion of other writers. Whatever works for you has to be the best system.
I’m very far from typical in my methods. Occasionally, I wish it were otherwise. I’ve written for many years, four completed books in print, yet still seek a method of maximising the way I work. For me, Nanowrimo isn’t that method, but I’m thrilled to see how many others have found it invaluable.
I have been a Wrimo for several years, and I would recommend trying the exercise before dismissing it.
In her comments, Viv says, “I think it works for people who are so unsure of themselves as writers that they need to stimulus of doing it in a group, like ramblers.” Well, I am one person who is very sure of myself as a writer, and perfectly capable of writing using the considered, methodical method supported by most commenters who haven’t tried.
But I have found NaNoWriMo extremely liberating. It releases me from writer’s block as no exercise has ever done. And — speaking for myself — it’s a heckuva whole lot of fun, not the duress and stress some commenters imagine.
Most importantly, when I crank out those words, day after day — and I am one who typically logs well over 2,000 words per day in November — I find the most magical things happening. A different part of my brain begins to work. My plot, which I have sketched out in advance (as do most “serious,” methodical writers), finds new ways of moving forward, springing, seemingly, from the impetuous outpouring of words. My characters demand logic — I don’t have the time to twist and force them into my plot sketch — and so the plot moves forward in a fashion that is often as surprising to me as life itself (and results in prose that is as fresh as life). Often, plot threads that I’ve been wondering how to tie up at the end will serendipitously weave themselves into the story in a most natural way, presenting you with that wonderful moment at the end when you look back and see that the outcome was inevitable, foreshadowed the whole time, but you just didn’t notice it.
I strongly believe that NaNoWriMo creates space for “noveling kismet.” You ought to try it.
Hi Ellen,
I’m becoming more and more convinced I’m missing out here. Sadly, as I tried to say yet obviously failed miserably, the fault lies with me. I can’t write when the mood isn’t on me. The obligation to write would make this worse. I’m delighted to hear of your success; keep on going!
Bad Barton! Bad bad Barton.
Horses for courses…
Et tu, Brute? Woe is me.
Nah. I totally agree with you. Sorry.
About the “muse deserting me” and not being able to write: a professional author of some stature wrote somewhere (I wish I had the name and exact quote handy) that the difference between the amateur and the professional is that the professional writes every day, whether the muse is “with” him/her or not.
That resonated with me, and for the much, much lesser writers such as myself, it’s very important to write. A lot.
So muse or no muse, Nano forces me to write every day and develop the habit of writing every day. That is a very good thing.
If NaNoWriMo doesn’t work for you, by all means don’t do it. But don’t assume that it is a bad thing for everyone, plenty of people enjoy doing NaNoWriMo, and it seems to work for them. If NaNoWriMo participants just wrote any old crap, there wouldn’t be so many who didn’t finish. That a great many don’t reach 50,000 shows that they are trying to write something decent. I could cut and paste “banana” 50,000 times if I just wanted to reach the word count. I hadn’t written more than 10,000 words before this. The end product is a book that might not be a best seller – or even sell at all – but it isn’t too bad. Many of the books produced in NaNoWriMo are crap. But so are many amateur paintings, yet no one objects to the thousands of art supply stores. People play amateur baseball in their local park, no one complains about how poor their play is compared to professional baseball.