I hit my 50K earlier this evening. I'd been a little behind, largely thanks to Thanksgiving and family commitments, but fortunately managed to hit my stride again at the end of last week. Overall, as always, I'm glad I did it. And, as always, only part of what I took away from the event was my manuscript. NaNo's a learning experience in more ways than one. Of the six of us who started the NaNo march together, three of us finished. Along the way, we became a bit closer and hopefully developed a cheering section/feedback loop which will benefit us in the future. And, of course, there was the self-discovery.
When I describe myself as a writer, a lot of the adjectives which come to mind are not flattering. I am slow. I am self-conscious to the point of crippling myself with decisions and revisions. I never feel as if my ideas are creative enough, my dialogue sparkling enough, my prose readable enough. Many times, I scrub at my work with the editorial brush until the gleam and shine is gone. Then I pitch whatever I've done away into my electronic 'under the bed' file and start over. Stories do survive this process, but not often, and not nearly as many as I'd like.
NaNo, however, is different. To me, it was getting permission to just go. I ended up with crazy patchwork quilts which will need serious re-editing, but I also noticed I was more relaxed this month than I have been for the past several months about my writing. It's not so much that my internal editor took a vacation; she was right there encouraging me to write scenes from alternate points of view, to take five or ten minutes before diving into the day's writing to glance over what I'd written the day before and to tweak any accidental mechanical flaws. It was more that I felt as if I had permission to be creative and different, and she knew it, too, so she sat on my shoulder and kept her mouth shut. I didn't miss her at all.
For the past several months, I've been editing old stories for re-publication, so I haven't been doing nearly the amount of original writing I prefer to do. NaNo gave me a chance to stretch my legs and run, and I'm glad to have had that chance. I finished feeling not as if I were winded, but as if I'd just hit a good, steady canter. I'm tired from the press of the last few days, but I wanted to keep going, and I will. I won't continue at the NaNo pace, but I can easily drop back into my 1K a day routine. At the moment, I feel the way I imagine marathon runners feel after they've crossed the line – tired, elated, a little euphoric, but ready to wake up the next morning and run a little more.
To my fellow NaNo winners, congratulations. To the friends and family who formed our cheering sections and enablers, deepest thanks. Even to those who questioned what we did or threw stones in the path served a purpose; after all, obstacles only give achievements extra savor.
And tomorrow, it'll be 365 days until the creative madness begins anew.
(Cross posted to http://The finish line breaks!
I hit my 50K earlier this evening. I'd been a little behind, largely thanks to Thanksgiving and family commitments, but fortunately managed to hit my stride again at the end of last week. Overall, as always, I'm glad I did it. And, as always, only part of what I took away from the event was my manuscript. NaNo's a learning experience in more ways than one. Of the six of us who started the NaNo march together, three of us finished. Along the way, we became a bit closer and hopefully developed a cheering section/feedback loop which will benefit us in the future. And, of course, there was the self-discovery.
When I describe myself as a writer, a lot of the adjectives which come to mind are not flattering. I am slow. I am self-conscious to the point of crippling myself with decisions and revisions. I never feel as if my ideas are creative enough, my dialogue sparkling enough, my prose readable enough. Many times, I scrub at my work with the editorial brush until the gleam and shine is gone. Then I pitch whatever I've done away into my electronic 'under the bed' file and start over. Stories do survive this process, but not often, and not nearly as many as I'd like.
NaNo, however, is different. To me, it was getting permission to just go. I ended up with crazy patchwork quilts which will need serious re-editing, but I also noticed I was more relaxed this month than I have been for the past several months about my writing. It's not so much that my internal editor took a vacation; she was right there encouraging me to write scenes from alternate points of view, to take five or ten minutes before diving into the day's writing to glance over what I'd written the day before and to tweak any accidental mechanical flaws. It was more that I felt as if I had permission to be creative and different, and she knew it, too, so she sat on my shoulder and kept her mouth shut. I didn't miss her at all.
For the past several months, I've been editing old stories for re-publication, so I haven't been doing nearly the amount of original writing I prefer to do. NaNo gave me a chance to stretch my legs and run, and I'm glad to have had that chance. I finished feeling not as if I were winded, but as if I'd just hit a good, steady canter. I'm tired from the press of the last few days, but I wanted to keep going, and I will. I won't continue at the NaNo pace, but I can easily drop back into my 1K a day routine. At the moment, I feel the way I imagine marathon runners feel after they've crossed the line – tired, elated, a little euphoric, but ready to wake up the next morning and run a little more.
To my fellow NaNo winners, congratulations. To the friends and family who formed our cheering sections and enablers, deepest thanks. Even to those who questioned what we did or threw stones in the path served a purpose; after all, obstacles only give achievements extra savor.
And tomorrow, it'll be 365 days until the creative madness begins anew.
http://elizabethdaniels.blogspot.com/2011/11/nano-week-five-finish-line-breaks.html)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
NaNo Week 3: Friends and Frenemies
The good thing about last week's miss on a blog post was that I was frantically writing fiction. The bad thing about writing one this week is that I haven't. At the approach of week four, I'm slightly over 30K to the good, with an average of 3K a day to write in order to hit the goal. Both my novellas are like amoebas right now, glop without much structure beyond a wall and a nucleus. Still, glop is preferable to no glop at all. In my first one, I'm still struggling with an ending. In my second one, it's tone. I've noticed I have no problems writing fast-paced, humorous, snappy dialogue as long as I am not writing a sex scene. Sex and humor is hard. (No pun intended. Really.) The experiment with the plotting system has to go on hold until I start revising. I suppose that's good to know, anyway.
In my last post, I discussed NaNo naysayers. In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that this crew has largely grown quiet. What I have noticed is NaNo has helped me tell my writing friends from my writing frenemies.
NaNo, to a writer, is not unlike embarking upon a new workout routine or training for a running event. Some of your friends will be solidly in your corner. The best ones will be your actual workout buddies, dragging their butts to the gym when you do, or coming out to run with you. Following close behind are the ones who'll support you by helping you stick to your diet or just being a cheering section. If you have to eat twigs and oats when you go out with them to lunch, they will eat twigs and oats with you without complaint and not ask for the dessert cart. At the very least, they'll compliment you for sticking to your diet and not try to push you into eating something you shouldn't. Nor do they encourage you to engage in activities which will break your training.
Then, there's the frenemies, whose actions will range from general lack of support to outright sabotage. Maybe they persist in scheduling activities at times which conflict with your workout schedule, then get offended when you decline. They'll tease you about your selections at lunch, encourage you to break your diet 'just a little bit', or skip workouts because 'just once won't hurt'. At their worst, they'll disparage your goals.
I believe motivation comes from within. I don't believe anyone who really wants to write needs a support group, any more than I believe anyone who really wants to exercise, diet or train needs a counselor or a buddy system. That said, anyone but a Scrooge-level misanthrope will appreciate the morale boost a good cheering section can provide. Similarly, even the most motivated person can be derailed by sabotage.
I'm fortunate. My immediate circle of writing friends, including the three other wonderful Wicked Authors, have been supportive of my NaNo efforts, whether they've been participants or not. At the end of week two, for example, I had three 15 hour days during which it was impossible to put a word on the page. At the end of it, my husband stepped in and offered to take care of our baby girl for the weekend and give me uninterrupted writing time. When I checked in to NaNo, a writing friend and fellow participant who was aware of my situation had sent me an encouraging e-mail. Other friends who intended to participate but who have fallen off the pace have chatted me through plot blocks or have been willing to reschedule events to give me more writing time. At the very least, even those who haven't actively encouraged or helped have at least done nothing to interfere.
Did I need my husband to give me that time? Well, it was a huge help, that's for certain, but I would have managed. Did I need that e-mail in order to have the motivation to buckle down and BICHOK? No. But it made me smile and gave me warm fuzzies. Could I have progressed without the brainstorming? Yes, though not as quickly. Would I have stuck to my guns about rescheduling events if they'd been less willing to do so? Yes. However, all of those have made a significant difference in my progress, and I'm grateful for it.
I've discovered only one borderline writing frenemy among my circle of writing acquaintances. Fortunately, this person's lack of support has largely been confined to wanting to schedule time-sucking events during my few free hours and wanting to chat during my writing time. No malice has been intended; it's simply a lack of consideration. Fortunately, I'm getting better at saying no to events and I'm screening my phone calls.
At their most vicious, however, the writing frenemies can be pure poison, and it takes surprisingly few of them to have a significant negative impact.
Again, I am fortunate, because my only contact with this type is through a few of my writing groups. Even so, just one person can have an incredible chilling effect. For example, in one group, there were a couple dozen NaNoers who began the event by mentioning their word counts and writing challenges. Every time they did so, one particular person with anti-NaNo sentiments would make some kind of negative comment about their progress or about the event in general. Nobody else on the loop made any discouraging comments at all.
After the first week, this person managed to kill all NaNo discussion. One person silenced two dozen and effectively killed a support mechanism.
I know I haven't bothered posting on that loop because I didn't want to have to deal with the emotional effects of the inevitable negative response. I'd want to write a scathing reply, and either I'd waste time writing it to get it off my chest, even if I didn't post it, or I'd be ticked off enough to have trouble concentrating for a while – again, wasting valuable writing time.
Are all the NaNo participants in that group still writing? Most likely some of them still are, but like me, they're doing what they can to lessen a toxic atmosphere and devoting their time to productive writing.
Even if I don't manage to hit my 50K, this winnowing of friends and frenemies has still been useful. I NaNo only once a year, but I write all year long. Now I know who wants me to succeed. I also know who will be threatened by my success.
In this season of giving thanks, I'm grateful to have so many people in my corner. I'm also grateful that I've learned, over the years, how to recognize frenemies and lessen the damage they can do.
Onward to 50K!
(cross posted to http://www.wickedauthors.com)
In my last post, I discussed NaNo naysayers. In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that this crew has largely grown quiet. What I have noticed is NaNo has helped me tell my writing friends from my writing frenemies.
NaNo, to a writer, is not unlike embarking upon a new workout routine or training for a running event. Some of your friends will be solidly in your corner. The best ones will be your actual workout buddies, dragging their butts to the gym when you do, or coming out to run with you. Following close behind are the ones who'll support you by helping you stick to your diet or just being a cheering section. If you have to eat twigs and oats when you go out with them to lunch, they will eat twigs and oats with you without complaint and not ask for the dessert cart. At the very least, they'll compliment you for sticking to your diet and not try to push you into eating something you shouldn't. Nor do they encourage you to engage in activities which will break your training.
Then, there's the frenemies, whose actions will range from general lack of support to outright sabotage. Maybe they persist in scheduling activities at times which conflict with your workout schedule, then get offended when you decline. They'll tease you about your selections at lunch, encourage you to break your diet 'just a little bit', or skip workouts because 'just once won't hurt'. At their worst, they'll disparage your goals.
I believe motivation comes from within. I don't believe anyone who really wants to write needs a support group, any more than I believe anyone who really wants to exercise, diet or train needs a counselor or a buddy system. That said, anyone but a Scrooge-level misanthrope will appreciate the morale boost a good cheering section can provide. Similarly, even the most motivated person can be derailed by sabotage.
I'm fortunate. My immediate circle of writing friends, including the three other wonderful Wicked Authors, have been supportive of my NaNo efforts, whether they've been participants or not. At the end of week two, for example, I had three 15 hour days during which it was impossible to put a word on the page. At the end of it, my husband stepped in and offered to take care of our baby girl for the weekend and give me uninterrupted writing time. When I checked in to NaNo, a writing friend and fellow participant who was aware of my situation had sent me an encouraging e-mail. Other friends who intended to participate but who have fallen off the pace have chatted me through plot blocks or have been willing to reschedule events to give me more writing time. At the very least, even those who haven't actively encouraged or helped have at least done nothing to interfere.
Did I need my husband to give me that time? Well, it was a huge help, that's for certain, but I would have managed. Did I need that e-mail in order to have the motivation to buckle down and BICHOK? No. But it made me smile and gave me warm fuzzies. Could I have progressed without the brainstorming? Yes, though not as quickly. Would I have stuck to my guns about rescheduling events if they'd been less willing to do so? Yes. However, all of those have made a significant difference in my progress, and I'm grateful for it.
I've discovered only one borderline writing frenemy among my circle of writing acquaintances. Fortunately, this person's lack of support has largely been confined to wanting to schedule time-sucking events during my few free hours and wanting to chat during my writing time. No malice has been intended; it's simply a lack of consideration. Fortunately, I'm getting better at saying no to events and I'm screening my phone calls.
At their most vicious, however, the writing frenemies can be pure poison, and it takes surprisingly few of them to have a significant negative impact.
Again, I am fortunate, because my only contact with this type is through a few of my writing groups. Even so, just one person can have an incredible chilling effect. For example, in one group, there were a couple dozen NaNoers who began the event by mentioning their word counts and writing challenges. Every time they did so, one particular person with anti-NaNo sentiments would make some kind of negative comment about their progress or about the event in general. Nobody else on the loop made any discouraging comments at all.
After the first week, this person managed to kill all NaNo discussion. One person silenced two dozen and effectively killed a support mechanism.
I know I haven't bothered posting on that loop because I didn't want to have to deal with the emotional effects of the inevitable negative response. I'd want to write a scathing reply, and either I'd waste time writing it to get it off my chest, even if I didn't post it, or I'd be ticked off enough to have trouble concentrating for a while – again, wasting valuable writing time.
Are all the NaNo participants in that group still writing? Most likely some of them still are, but like me, they're doing what they can to lessen a toxic atmosphere and devoting their time to productive writing.
Even if I don't manage to hit my 50K, this winnowing of friends and frenemies has still been useful. I NaNo only once a year, but I write all year long. Now I know who wants me to succeed. I also know who will be threatened by my success.
In this season of giving thanks, I'm grateful to have so many people in my corner. I'm also grateful that I've learned, over the years, how to recognize frenemies and lessen the damage they can do.
Onward to 50K!
(cross posted to http://www.wickedauthors.com)
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
NaNo Week 1: Still No Gold Star
Week One NaNo Progress report: 12,000ish to the good. Before anyone gets too impressed (including myself), I should say that is a rough, ROUGH draft. Normally, I would have gone back and revised by this time, since I realized my concept needed to be much simplified. Instead, I put a note at the top of the scene before which I realized things needed to be changed, and continued to write. It'll be an interesting experiment to see whether or not this really works for me.
The first two days of this week have been well below daily par, mostly because I'm not entirely certain about the ending. I admit, I've spent a lot of time doing mindless household tasks and tackling my terrible desk, muttering plot ideas under my breath and occasionally stopping to scribble something down (which, to date, has always been totally unrelated to what I'm actually writing.) But I'll get there once my subconscious has chewed over my options enough. Half a grand, half a grand, half a grand onward.
Speaking of onward, the NaNo topic of the week for me is: why do I NaNo? Why should anyone, for that matter?
I know a number of people who act as if being involved in NaNo gives them some kind of special cachet. Why, I don't know. I do know it happens. I notice quite a few of these people also don't finish. If they do finish, I never hear about any revisions. To these people, it's being known as a writer that's important to them, not actually accomplishing anything.
And hey, if that works for them, more power to them. On the other hand, I hope none of them make the mistake of trying to use NaNo as writing street cred – or at least, not around me. When it comes to writing, as far as I'm concerned, only two things consitute street cred: getting your work accepted by a publisher and/or making some decent bucks if you publish on your own.
I, however, didn't get a gold star for signing up for the Literary Death March. (I did get a t-shirt, but I bought it.) I'm not even going to get one if I zoom past the magical 50K finish line two weeks before schedule. (If that happens, expect the next morning's headline to announce flying pigs.) Clearly, I'm not going to use my involvement for bragging rights.
So why do I do it?
I'll be honest: I approach NaNo a little differently than most. It's not in me to take on a project of any kind for the sheer love of doing it, even if I enjoy what I'm doing. I am, however, far more productive when I have a deadline. Self-imposed deadlines do not work. I wish they did. Give me a concrete date to shoot for, however, and I'm in business.
As a result, I frequently find myself writing on command to various calls. Sitting down and writing something potentially salable which wasn't to a call, however, is something that keeps getting slipped down the list of priorities, to end up somewhere between getting a head start on my taxes and sorting my sock drawer.
Back in 2007, I was rapidly approaching burnout. I'd been writing for one particular website which required a specific BDSM theme. The publisher was great. He paid well and he paid on time. The other writers who worked for him were terrific, and I think the world of them. However, writing the same old thing was driving me insane.
A writing friend semi-challenged me to try NaNo. All I had was a vague idea of an erotic non-BDSM romance, but I agreed, more to keep him company than anything else.
He ended up dumping out of it about a week and a half in, but I kept at it. Not because I had anything really good; I had only a whisper of a plot idea, so I was pantsing all the way. But it was different. I enjoyed writing again, and the schedule pressed me to sit and produce. The challenge was enough to make me want to finish, but the stress level was low. The world wasn't going to end (or rather, a publisher wasn't going to come hunting for my head) if I didn't finish.
I ended up with a 52,000ish word mess, which I later revised into a 7,200 story. Said story ended up getting rejected by the publisher to whom I submitted it. (Deservedly so, I might add. One of these days, I'll pull it off my hard drive and see if I can't scrub it up enough to present it in public somewhere.) But writing it helped stave off the burnout, and more importantly, forced me to venture out of the safe little niche I'd carved for myself.
Last year, I was coming off a two year writing hiatus after having a baby. I'd managed to resume writing earlier in the year, but we ended up with obligations which forced another three month break. When events began to settle, I tried to get back into writing, but the cogs wouldn't mesh. Try though I might, I couldn't make myself sit down and just produce.
November and NaNo came around a few weeks later. I had several calls to which I wanted to write. Even though it wasn't a novel, per se, I thought I'd use NaNo as a personal challenge to just write. I picked my top six calls and decided I'd use the month to write a rough draft of one story for each challenge. If the total words made it over 50K, great; if not, I would have something to show for it.
And I did. My total count ended up being nearly 60K. Of the six I picked, two ended up polishing up well enough to sell. The other four are semi-revised and waiting for an appropriate venue, since they ended up growing in a direction which wouldn't answer what the editors had requested. But the important thing was, I was writing again, and regularly.
This year, I'm using the challenge to force myself to work towards two novellas. Both are a longer length than I've ever managed. Is it cheating because I'm not working towards a single work? I don't think so, and don't really care. The important thing is, if I stick it out, I'll have met a professional goal. I liken it to training for a 5K run. Even if I end up not running in the event, I've at least raised my personal fitness level and achieved something which will help me succeed later.
So, do I recommend NaNo? I'd say yes, provided the participant takes the event in the spirit in which it's intended. I have one participating writing friend who's burning up the keys who's got an incredible writing career. (I want to be her when I grow up, if I ever do.) Yet she's taking the month to try a young adult fiction, which she's never done before, and she's having a blast because it's new and different for her. I have another friend who's a terrific fanfic writer. NaNo's given her the impetus to try her first original fiction.
For them, it's working as intended.
In the end, NaNo is nothing more than a motivational tool for people who really want to write. If you're one of the people I admire, the people who write with a fire under your fingers already, NaNo may not be something you need or even want. There's no need to feel guilty about not participating. If, like me, you get burned out or even just need a kickstart, it's a great opportunity.
What it shouldn't be considered is some badge of honor, or even a feather in one's cap. The result, not the process, is what's important.
To those participating, see you on the other side. To those who aren't, all cheers appreciated!
(Cross posted to http://www.wickedauthors.com)
The first two days of this week have been well below daily par, mostly because I'm not entirely certain about the ending. I admit, I've spent a lot of time doing mindless household tasks and tackling my terrible desk, muttering plot ideas under my breath and occasionally stopping to scribble something down (which, to date, has always been totally unrelated to what I'm actually writing.) But I'll get there once my subconscious has chewed over my options enough. Half a grand, half a grand, half a grand onward.
Speaking of onward, the NaNo topic of the week for me is: why do I NaNo? Why should anyone, for that matter?
I know a number of people who act as if being involved in NaNo gives them some kind of special cachet. Why, I don't know. I do know it happens. I notice quite a few of these people also don't finish. If they do finish, I never hear about any revisions. To these people, it's being known as a writer that's important to them, not actually accomplishing anything.
And hey, if that works for them, more power to them. On the other hand, I hope none of them make the mistake of trying to use NaNo as writing street cred – or at least, not around me. When it comes to writing, as far as I'm concerned, only two things consitute street cred: getting your work accepted by a publisher and/or making some decent bucks if you publish on your own.
I, however, didn't get a gold star for signing up for the Literary Death March. (I did get a t-shirt, but I bought it.) I'm not even going to get one if I zoom past the magical 50K finish line two weeks before schedule. (If that happens, expect the next morning's headline to announce flying pigs.) Clearly, I'm not going to use my involvement for bragging rights.
So why do I do it?
I'll be honest: I approach NaNo a little differently than most. It's not in me to take on a project of any kind for the sheer love of doing it, even if I enjoy what I'm doing. I am, however, far more productive when I have a deadline. Self-imposed deadlines do not work. I wish they did. Give me a concrete date to shoot for, however, and I'm in business.
As a result, I frequently find myself writing on command to various calls. Sitting down and writing something potentially salable which wasn't to a call, however, is something that keeps getting slipped down the list of priorities, to end up somewhere between getting a head start on my taxes and sorting my sock drawer.
Back in 2007, I was rapidly approaching burnout. I'd been writing for one particular website which required a specific BDSM theme. The publisher was great. He paid well and he paid on time. The other writers who worked for him were terrific, and I think the world of them. However, writing the same old thing was driving me insane.
A writing friend semi-challenged me to try NaNo. All I had was a vague idea of an erotic non-BDSM romance, but I agreed, more to keep him company than anything else.
He ended up dumping out of it about a week and a half in, but I kept at it. Not because I had anything really good; I had only a whisper of a plot idea, so I was pantsing all the way. But it was different. I enjoyed writing again, and the schedule pressed me to sit and produce. The challenge was enough to make me want to finish, but the stress level was low. The world wasn't going to end (or rather, a publisher wasn't going to come hunting for my head) if I didn't finish.
I ended up with a 52,000ish word mess, which I later revised into a 7,200 story. Said story ended up getting rejected by the publisher to whom I submitted it. (Deservedly so, I might add. One of these days, I'll pull it off my hard drive and see if I can't scrub it up enough to present it in public somewhere.) But writing it helped stave off the burnout, and more importantly, forced me to venture out of the safe little niche I'd carved for myself.
Last year, I was coming off a two year writing hiatus after having a baby. I'd managed to resume writing earlier in the year, but we ended up with obligations which forced another three month break. When events began to settle, I tried to get back into writing, but the cogs wouldn't mesh. Try though I might, I couldn't make myself sit down and just produce.
November and NaNo came around a few weeks later. I had several calls to which I wanted to write. Even though it wasn't a novel, per se, I thought I'd use NaNo as a personal challenge to just write. I picked my top six calls and decided I'd use the month to write a rough draft of one story for each challenge. If the total words made it over 50K, great; if not, I would have something to show for it.
And I did. My total count ended up being nearly 60K. Of the six I picked, two ended up polishing up well enough to sell. The other four are semi-revised and waiting for an appropriate venue, since they ended up growing in a direction which wouldn't answer what the editors had requested. But the important thing was, I was writing again, and regularly.
This year, I'm using the challenge to force myself to work towards two novellas. Both are a longer length than I've ever managed. Is it cheating because I'm not working towards a single work? I don't think so, and don't really care. The important thing is, if I stick it out, I'll have met a professional goal. I liken it to training for a 5K run. Even if I end up not running in the event, I've at least raised my personal fitness level and achieved something which will help me succeed later.
So, do I recommend NaNo? I'd say yes, provided the participant takes the event in the spirit in which it's intended. I have one participating writing friend who's burning up the keys who's got an incredible writing career. (I want to be her when I grow up, if I ever do.) Yet she's taking the month to try a young adult fiction, which she's never done before, and she's having a blast because it's new and different for her. I have another friend who's a terrific fanfic writer. NaNo's given her the impetus to try her first original fiction.
For them, it's working as intended.
In the end, NaNo is nothing more than a motivational tool for people who really want to write. If you're one of the people I admire, the people who write with a fire under your fingers already, NaNo may not be something you need or even want. There's no need to feel guilty about not participating. If, like me, you get burned out or even just need a kickstart, it's a great opportunity.
What it shouldn't be considered is some badge of honor, or even a feather in one's cap. The result, not the process, is what's important.
To those participating, see you on the other side. To those who aren't, all cheers appreciated!
(Cross posted to http://www.wickedauthors.com)
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Why I Love NaNoWriMo - And You Might, Too.
(Cross posted to Wicked Authors; http://www.wickedauthors.com.)
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for fun, then for money, then you recruit other people." – From one of my many writing-themed pinback buttons, and also a bastardization of Molière's original quote.
I can think of no other modern day event which better exemplifies this statement than National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo or NaNo.
For the possibly three dozen people out there living under rocks who have never heard of NaNo, it's a month long event during which participants are encouraged to write a 50,000 word novel. This year, I'm one of those participants. And, like the writing whore I am, I recruited a couple of other people to suffer along with me for a month.
As a former teacher and literacy advocate, I've always taken the view that anything which encouraged people to read or to write is a good thing. For obvious reasons, NaNo falls squarely into the latter category. Whether one comes out of the event with a publishable 50K work in final draft form (highly doubtful) or not, I can't help but think the experience is beneficial for the participants.
Some people disagree with me, however. As NaNo's popularity has continued to grow, so have the number of naysayers. At first, I saw only the occasional blog post. Last year, Laura Miller of salon.com noted the start of the event with a scathing anti-NaNo article, calling writing a "narcissistic pursuit", claiming NaNo's goals were "a waste of time" and stating that events which promoted reading, rather than writing, were what were needed.
In the past, I've shrugged all this aside and gone on my merry way. After all, everyone's entitled to their opinion. However, this year, the anti-NaNo sentiment has even trickled into some of my writing circles. For the first time, I'm seeing a chilling effect, and I don't like it.
For all the pro-NaNo blogs and articles out there, few directly refute any of the claims of the anti-NaNoists. Since I was fuming a little after reading my last writer's loop (and since I needed a blog post, anyway) I thought I'd try a rebuttal.
What follows are my responses to some of the more touted anti-NaNo claims. I'll start with a few of Miller's.
1. "..."writing a lot of crap” doesn’t sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November."
Let's start with the source from whence this objection springs. Despite being a senior writer at salon.com, Miller states she's not a novelist. To the best of my knowledge, she has never participated in NaNoWriMo. Her one published work is an essay about her gleanings from C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. At least Miller is honest about her lack of experience as a novelist. However, because she is not a novelist, I don't consider Miller a credible source about what does and does not work for novel writing, anymore than I'd consider someone who's never built anything an expert in how to build a house. At best, she's a back seat driver on a journey she's never taken. So I take anything she has to say about NaNo and novel writing in general with a livestock-sized block of salt.
The statement to which Miller takes exception is from NaNo founder Chris Baty's summation of what writers can expect from NaNo. Baty's point is that many writers, like Eliot's Prufrock, get caught up in 'decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse', and as a result, get nowhere. The point of NaNo for these people is to get it out and get it down.
But hey. The phrase 'writing a lot of crap' doesn't exactly inspire confidence, I grant you. So what can 'writing a lot of crap' do for you?
Plenty, according to some real experts in the field. (Real as in: have actually written multiple novels, unlike Miller.) To paraphrase Nora Roberts (whom one has to admit has prolific down to a fine science), one can't edit a blank page. Multi-published author and workshop instructor Anna DeStefano says she keeps a sign over her desk which says, "You have my permission to write crap!" Why? Because when she analyzed the reason she was not as productive as she wanted, she found she was wasting a great deal of time on perfecting a rough draft in progress instead of accepting the rough draft would be rough, finishing the draft, and then revising what she had.
Nor is DeStefano alone in her advice. Doing a quick Google search and putting my head together with a couple of writing friends produced no less than seven well known and well respected writing instructors who give the exact same advice, and for the same reasons.
And they get results. So do the writers who follow their advice.
What Miller overlooks is that none of these people, Baty included, are saying that one should not edit one's work, nor that 'crap' is the final goal. It's simply a directive to sit down, turn off the internal editor, and write. It's a way to stop second-guessing yourself and get words on a page.
As someone who regularly kneecaps herself with heavy draft editing, this is advice I can appreciate.
Unlike Miller, I'm not going to be guilty of overgeneralization. I won't say the "write crap" approach works for everyone, because everyone has a different approach to the writing process. I'm not even going to say that some people don't skip the critical revision step and leave their work as crap. I am saying that for most would-be writers, writing "a lot of crap" is, indeed, a profitable way to spend a November. At one of the largest Alaskan gold mines, miners typically sift through 33 tons of waste rock to refine just one ounce of pure gold. Writing is the same. No waste rock means nothing to refine.
2. People waste money on how-to books and materials. Businesses have jumped onto the bandwagon, further commercializing the creative process.
To this claim, I have but one counter: every purchase made benefits the economy. Therefore, even if someone never cracks that how-to book they bought, they've supported the publisher, the editors and the author. If by some chance that person actually does learn something from the book and is able to produce his or her own publishable work, then that person is also providing work for an editor and a publisher, plus pumping a product for sale out into the marketplace.
One might successfully argue the effectiveness of the how-to publications or even whether such an expenditure benefits the individual who makes the purchase. As far as the general economy is concerned, however, these products are not a waste of money. Moreover, anyone who actually does read the books is learning something, and the former teacher in me says learning is never a waste.
3. NaNoWriMo encourages people to write when they should be reading.
Garbage. Even if participants only read the work of other participants, they are still reading. Further, I counter with the argument that the effort of writing a novel increases the appreciation of readers for writers and the effort which goes into writing a manuscript.
For example: I've lost count of how many times I've been asked what I write. When I reply, 'romantic and literary erotica', at least twenty-five percent of the time, the response is, "You know, I've meant to sit down one weekend and bang out one of those myself."
I'm never sure what irritates me more about that comment: the hubris of someone who's never composed anything assuming they could write a full length novel, or the sheer ignorance that assumes they could do so in a 48 hour period.
However, there is one thing of which I am certain, and that is that nobody who has participated in NaNo, successfully or otherwise, will ever make that statement. If people come away with a new respect for the time and effort it takes to create a work of fiction (or, for that fact, non-fiction), I'd call it a win.
In short, Miller's objections are groundless. But she created controversy, got hits for salon.com, and managed to get attention through ignorance, so I suppose her purpose was served.
Another well-trafficked blog entry from 2006 entitled "Why I Hate NaNo, And Why You Should, Too" by Eric Rosenfeld provides another laundry list of complaints about the event, some of which echo Miller's. In his comments post-blog, however, Rosenfeld ends up making some of the most elitist complaints I've yet heard about the event, including the following:
4. "It's the idea that writing a novel is something anyone and everyone should do that bothers me, and that writing a novel is somehow seperate [sic] from dedicating yourself seriously to the craft of writing."
My question is, what is the fabled criteria which indicates whether someone should or should not write a novel? Or, in fact, write at all? Is it an advanced degree in English or a writing-related field from a university? Better scratch Shakespeare. Should one not write if one cannot be a full time writer? That would eliminate a list of writers longer than Santa's fabled list, especially as poorly as many authors are paid. Even many writers who have become commercially successful did not start out that way; Stephen King taught high school and drove a bus while writing Carrie.
Rosenfeld goes on to say that while he believes it admirable to want to become a better writer, it is not admirable to simply want to (essentially) churn out 50K words in order to cross a finish line or check off some life goal. Further, in his blog, Rosenfeld speculates most participants will never write another word after that 50K magnum opus.
Now, I'm willing to cut Rosenfeld some slack. He did do a follow up blog post in 2009 which moaned a little about how much grief he'd gotten for the original blog post (although he does say it was the one with the highest hit count) and admitted he'd had some time to rethink some of his more controversial statements. He doesn't out and out rescind what he said, but he does grudgingly admit that NaNo might, for some authors, be useful. (Big of ya there, Eric.)
However, I again must give a NaNo objector credit. Rosenfeld was really honest enough to post what I've heard others say. That, in fact, if you're just going to do a one-and-done novel, why bother trying?
Guess it's a good thing neither Harper Lee nor J.D. Salinger, among others, took that advice.
In my (never humble, but always present) opinion, the only way to know whether one is a writer is to write. It may well be that a number of individuals who attempt the NaNoWriMo challenge find that the process is much harder than they expected. They may find the work doesn't appeal. This happens in many careers, not just writing. The point is, unless one attempts to write, one will never know. And that is precisely the kind of opportunity NaNo provides.
Finally, we have the objection I read on my writer's loop, the one which really kicked me into writing this post.
5. NaNoWriMo produces a glut of inferior works which agents and editors then have to sort through, thus clogging the pipes for 'real' writers.
Multi-published author and writing instructor Holly Lisle wrote an excellent article called Money from Nothing: The Economic Value of Writing Original Fiction which deals with the opposite side of that argument. In summary, Lisle takes the view that submissions, even poor ones, drive the market. Without manuscripts, the editors and agents have no jobs. These people get paid to wade through literary crap.
Let's face it: Anyone who discourages other people from even making an attempt at writing something has a personal agenda. When people complain that 'amateurs are clogging the market', what they're really saying is that they're afraid of the competition. That's not only petty, that's sad. If you want to be published, write a better book, don't seek to eliminate those who can.
Overall, I think what even the worst writers can gain through NaNo is an appreciation for the difficulty of the novel-writing process. They're less likely to take good fiction for granted. They're better informed readers, if only because they now understand that the book they just read wasn't written in a day, but is the product of someone's weeks or months of brain-wracking effort. If they submit a subpar work and are rejected, they also understand the heartbreaking struggle writers go through in order to get their work published.
But for the one in a thousand or even one in a hundred thousand who has something worthwhile to say, NaNo can be gold, both for writers and for readers.
To my fellow NaNoers on the journey: Best of luck to you all.
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for fun, then for money, then you recruit other people." – From one of my many writing-themed pinback buttons, and also a bastardization of Molière's original quote.
I can think of no other modern day event which better exemplifies this statement than National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo or NaNo.
For the possibly three dozen people out there living under rocks who have never heard of NaNo, it's a month long event during which participants are encouraged to write a 50,000 word novel. This year, I'm one of those participants. And, like the writing whore I am, I recruited a couple of other people to suffer along with me for a month.
As a former teacher and literacy advocate, I've always taken the view that anything which encouraged people to read or to write is a good thing. For obvious reasons, NaNo falls squarely into the latter category. Whether one comes out of the event with a publishable 50K work in final draft form (highly doubtful) or not, I can't help but think the experience is beneficial for the participants.
Some people disagree with me, however. As NaNo's popularity has continued to grow, so have the number of naysayers. At first, I saw only the occasional blog post. Last year, Laura Miller of salon.com noted the start of the event with a scathing anti-NaNo article, calling writing a "narcissistic pursuit", claiming NaNo's goals were "a waste of time" and stating that events which promoted reading, rather than writing, were what were needed.
In the past, I've shrugged all this aside and gone on my merry way. After all, everyone's entitled to their opinion. However, this year, the anti-NaNo sentiment has even trickled into some of my writing circles. For the first time, I'm seeing a chilling effect, and I don't like it.
For all the pro-NaNo blogs and articles out there, few directly refute any of the claims of the anti-NaNoists. Since I was fuming a little after reading my last writer's loop (and since I needed a blog post, anyway) I thought I'd try a rebuttal.
What follows are my responses to some of the more touted anti-NaNo claims. I'll start with a few of Miller's.
1. "..."writing a lot of crap” doesn’t sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November."
Let's start with the source from whence this objection springs. Despite being a senior writer at salon.com, Miller states she's not a novelist. To the best of my knowledge, she has never participated in NaNoWriMo. Her one published work is an essay about her gleanings from C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. At least Miller is honest about her lack of experience as a novelist. However, because she is not a novelist, I don't consider Miller a credible source about what does and does not work for novel writing, anymore than I'd consider someone who's never built anything an expert in how to build a house. At best, she's a back seat driver on a journey she's never taken. So I take anything she has to say about NaNo and novel writing in general with a livestock-sized block of salt.
The statement to which Miller takes exception is from NaNo founder Chris Baty's summation of what writers can expect from NaNo. Baty's point is that many writers, like Eliot's Prufrock, get caught up in 'decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse', and as a result, get nowhere. The point of NaNo for these people is to get it out and get it down.
But hey. The phrase 'writing a lot of crap' doesn't exactly inspire confidence, I grant you. So what can 'writing a lot of crap' do for you?
Plenty, according to some real experts in the field. (Real as in: have actually written multiple novels, unlike Miller.) To paraphrase Nora Roberts (whom one has to admit has prolific down to a fine science), one can't edit a blank page. Multi-published author and workshop instructor Anna DeStefano says she keeps a sign over her desk which says, "You have my permission to write crap!" Why? Because when she analyzed the reason she was not as productive as she wanted, she found she was wasting a great deal of time on perfecting a rough draft in progress instead of accepting the rough draft would be rough, finishing the draft, and then revising what she had.
Nor is DeStefano alone in her advice. Doing a quick Google search and putting my head together with a couple of writing friends produced no less than seven well known and well respected writing instructors who give the exact same advice, and for the same reasons.
And they get results. So do the writers who follow their advice.
What Miller overlooks is that none of these people, Baty included, are saying that one should not edit one's work, nor that 'crap' is the final goal. It's simply a directive to sit down, turn off the internal editor, and write. It's a way to stop second-guessing yourself and get words on a page.
As someone who regularly kneecaps herself with heavy draft editing, this is advice I can appreciate.
Unlike Miller, I'm not going to be guilty of overgeneralization. I won't say the "write crap" approach works for everyone, because everyone has a different approach to the writing process. I'm not even going to say that some people don't skip the critical revision step and leave their work as crap. I am saying that for most would-be writers, writing "a lot of crap" is, indeed, a profitable way to spend a November. At one of the largest Alaskan gold mines, miners typically sift through 33 tons of waste rock to refine just one ounce of pure gold. Writing is the same. No waste rock means nothing to refine.
2. People waste money on how-to books and materials. Businesses have jumped onto the bandwagon, further commercializing the creative process.
To this claim, I have but one counter: every purchase made benefits the economy. Therefore, even if someone never cracks that how-to book they bought, they've supported the publisher, the editors and the author. If by some chance that person actually does learn something from the book and is able to produce his or her own publishable work, then that person is also providing work for an editor and a publisher, plus pumping a product for sale out into the marketplace.
One might successfully argue the effectiveness of the how-to publications or even whether such an expenditure benefits the individual who makes the purchase. As far as the general economy is concerned, however, these products are not a waste of money. Moreover, anyone who actually does read the books is learning something, and the former teacher in me says learning is never a waste.
3. NaNoWriMo encourages people to write when they should be reading.
Garbage. Even if participants only read the work of other participants, they are still reading. Further, I counter with the argument that the effort of writing a novel increases the appreciation of readers for writers and the effort which goes into writing a manuscript.
For example: I've lost count of how many times I've been asked what I write. When I reply, 'romantic and literary erotica', at least twenty-five percent of the time, the response is, "You know, I've meant to sit down one weekend and bang out one of those myself."
I'm never sure what irritates me more about that comment: the hubris of someone who's never composed anything assuming they could write a full length novel, or the sheer ignorance that assumes they could do so in a 48 hour period.
However, there is one thing of which I am certain, and that is that nobody who has participated in NaNo, successfully or otherwise, will ever make that statement. If people come away with a new respect for the time and effort it takes to create a work of fiction (or, for that fact, non-fiction), I'd call it a win.
In short, Miller's objections are groundless. But she created controversy, got hits for salon.com, and managed to get attention through ignorance, so I suppose her purpose was served.
Another well-trafficked blog entry from 2006 entitled "Why I Hate NaNo, And Why You Should, Too" by Eric Rosenfeld provides another laundry list of complaints about the event, some of which echo Miller's. In his comments post-blog, however, Rosenfeld ends up making some of the most elitist complaints I've yet heard about the event, including the following:
4. "It's the idea that writing a novel is something anyone and everyone should do that bothers me, and that writing a novel is somehow seperate [sic] from dedicating yourself seriously to the craft of writing."
My question is, what is the fabled criteria which indicates whether someone should or should not write a novel? Or, in fact, write at all? Is it an advanced degree in English or a writing-related field from a university? Better scratch Shakespeare. Should one not write if one cannot be a full time writer? That would eliminate a list of writers longer than Santa's fabled list, especially as poorly as many authors are paid. Even many writers who have become commercially successful did not start out that way; Stephen King taught high school and drove a bus while writing Carrie.
Rosenfeld goes on to say that while he believes it admirable to want to become a better writer, it is not admirable to simply want to (essentially) churn out 50K words in order to cross a finish line or check off some life goal. Further, in his blog, Rosenfeld speculates most participants will never write another word after that 50K magnum opus.
Now, I'm willing to cut Rosenfeld some slack. He did do a follow up blog post in 2009 which moaned a little about how much grief he'd gotten for the original blog post (although he does say it was the one with the highest hit count) and admitted he'd had some time to rethink some of his more controversial statements. He doesn't out and out rescind what he said, but he does grudgingly admit that NaNo might, for some authors, be useful. (Big of ya there, Eric.)
However, I again must give a NaNo objector credit. Rosenfeld was really honest enough to post what I've heard others say. That, in fact, if you're just going to do a one-and-done novel, why bother trying?
Guess it's a good thing neither Harper Lee nor J.D. Salinger, among others, took that advice.
In my (never humble, but always present) opinion, the only way to know whether one is a writer is to write. It may well be that a number of individuals who attempt the NaNoWriMo challenge find that the process is much harder than they expected. They may find the work doesn't appeal. This happens in many careers, not just writing. The point is, unless one attempts to write, one will never know. And that is precisely the kind of opportunity NaNo provides.
Finally, we have the objection I read on my writer's loop, the one which really kicked me into writing this post.
5. NaNoWriMo produces a glut of inferior works which agents and editors then have to sort through, thus clogging the pipes for 'real' writers.
Multi-published author and writing instructor Holly Lisle wrote an excellent article called Money from Nothing: The Economic Value of Writing Original Fiction which deals with the opposite side of that argument. In summary, Lisle takes the view that submissions, even poor ones, drive the market. Without manuscripts, the editors and agents have no jobs. These people get paid to wade through literary crap.
Let's face it: Anyone who discourages other people from even making an attempt at writing something has a personal agenda. When people complain that 'amateurs are clogging the market', what they're really saying is that they're afraid of the competition. That's not only petty, that's sad. If you want to be published, write a better book, don't seek to eliminate those who can.
Overall, I think what even the worst writers can gain through NaNo is an appreciation for the difficulty of the novel-writing process. They're less likely to take good fiction for granted. They're better informed readers, if only because they now understand that the book they just read wasn't written in a day, but is the product of someone's weeks or months of brain-wracking effort. If they submit a subpar work and are rejected, they also understand the heartbreaking struggle writers go through in order to get their work published.
But for the one in a thousand or even one in a hundred thousand who has something worthwhile to say, NaNo can be gold, both for writers and for readers.
To my fellow NaNoers on the journey: Best of luck to you all.
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