NaNoWriMo

[ralphmelton]

chadu and bruceb's comments on NaNoWriMo have led me to post some of my own thoughts.

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo.

I feel fairly certain that I could write a 50K novel in a month--but I'm also fairly certain that any novel I wrote in a month would stink like a slaughtered hog in the sun. And it would be a big time commitment for me to do so--time that I could be using to prepare my D&D game, spend time with my wife, and so forth.

So for me, the joy of creation is outweighed by the opportunities to do other things.

Comments

[echoweaver.livejournal.com]

Some day I will try NaNoWriMo. I'm not entirely sure I could do 50K in a month on the first try -- I tend to want to ponder each paragraph and get the wording right before moving to the next, and that's exactly what NaNoWriMo is trying to train you out of doing. You can go back and edit a completed story, but editing as you go often kills the story.

However, to do it, I think I would have to make it my life for that month, setting aside most other things I love, several of which have weekly or monthly committments. Viola needs rehearsal and practicing. Non-RPG game nights twice/month. Weekly RPG likely to start up soon. Chuch choir. Lots of more spontaneous time with friends. These are too valuable to me to drop them unless I've really decided that writing is what I want. That's pretty much the point you're making, I think.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's pretty much my point.

The other part of my sentiment is that I don't feel much yearning to produce unreadable garbage. I've already got my D&D campaign as a big creative project that I'm not sharing with the world at large. I'd feel much more accomplished with 5,000 words that I was willing to submit to Pyramid than 50,000 words that even I couldn't bear to read again.

[echoweaver.livejournal.com]

Well.... you may not be the target audience of NaNoWriMo. I can see the value in the skills they're trying to hone. Though refining your work to make it readable to others is the eventual goal, the vast majority of stories don't get written down because the author does not have the discipline to keep writing. NaNoWriMo is a way to work on that particular discipline. No one can write a good novel until he can finish any novel.

A few years ago, I pushed myself through a smaller exercise. I have done a lot of fiction writing, but mostly in collaborative amature clubs. I have written very few stories that were mine, start to finish. I'd started the same stories several times, but never finished them. So I set myself to do just that -- finish a previously-started short story -- mostly to prove that I could do it. Accomplishing the goal involved a lot of pushing myself to write through places that I thought were poorly written and going nowhere. However, I was able to get myself back on track. Some of those rough spots did need a lot of revising when I went back, and some actually weren't too bad. But I'd never have finished if I stopped at those spots to make sure they were right.

I'm proud of the story, but sadly only my husband has read it. Not because I'm shy, but because I don't want to force my work on people who would only read it to be polite. I keep intending to ask a friend in the industry to give it a look over and come back with some evaluation of my talent.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

In general most people can't bear to read their first drafts. NaNoWriMo is trying to train people to write shitty first drafts. It's the only way I ever complete fiction.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Sweetheart, this entry made me laugh uncontollably, and every time I read the simile "stink like a slaughtered hog in the sun," it starts again.

Thanks, I needed that :)

[cellio]

It's not as if you don't have other creative outlets. The game is a big one, and the work you've produced there (the campaign itself and the written artifacts you sometimes send us) has been quite spiff.