Nanowrimo started yesterday. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last seventeen years, Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month, a writer’s challenge that started in 1999 with the idea of writing a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and 11:59 on November 30.
Lots of people have opinions about Nanowrimo, including that it encourages people to write “too fast,” that the results will inevitably be poor, that 50,000 words is too short for publishing, that its existence devalues the hard work professional writers put in, that it is a form of literary rot, that it’s just a gimmick. About the only complaint I have any real sympathy for is that of the editors who cringe at the deluge of unpolished 50,000-word manuscripts that show up in their slush piles in December…but that has more to do with the over-eager would-be writers not realizing that a first draft is not what you send off to editors than it does with any of the other aspects of Nanowrimo.
First, I want to point out a couple of things, starting with the fact that there are all sorts of writing processes and at least five times as many problems that arise from each of them. One fairly common problem is that of the Endless Reviser – the writer who never manages to get more than 10,000 words into a novel because he/she stops every paragraph or so to revise everything they’ve written so far, and then stops again to rip everything up and rearrange the sentences and scenes (which necessitates rewriting transitions and reviewing everything to make sure it’s consistent and then revising and tweaking everything in the new arrangement every few paragraphs).
A second common problem is the Perfectionist, who is so determined to make every sentence gleam that it takes them twenty years to get halfway through their first draft. A third is the Easily Distracted Writer, who gets thrown off course by interesting new characters or subplots, or who repeatedly drops the current work entirely halfway through because they’ve got a shiny new idea for a completely different story. Similar to this is the Quickly Bored Writer, who switches to a new beginning the minute they begin to bog down. And then there’s the Time Strapped writer who has heard all about how it takes five or ten or twenty years to write a (good) novel, and who just can’t summon up enough commitment to even begin a project they expect to take that long, and the Insecure Writer who doesn’t think they’re good enough to write a novel (and never bothers to ask how they’re going to get good enough if they never write anything).
Nanowrimo addresses all of these problems by asking for a one-month, 50,000-word commitment. The Endless Reviser and Perfectionist can’t write that much in a month if they remain determined to make their first draft perfect and fully tweaked. The relentless pace keeps the Quickly Bored writer on track. The thirty-day time limit keeps the Easily Distracted writer focused and is a reasonable test commitment for the Time Strapped writer. The encouragement and time-and-word-count limits are helpful for Insecure Writers who need practice. Finally, writing 50,000 words in 30 days is hard work, but doable, which is a great confidence builder for would-be writers who succeed and a reasonably good test for would-be writers who expect writing to be a lot easier than it is.
In short, the critics – except for the editors – are on the wrong track. The point of Nanowrimo is not to turn out a fully-polished, ready-for-submission final draft in 30 days. It’s to give would-be writers encouragement and motivation and the experience of testing one specific writing process, to wit, completing a skeletal first draft in a concentrated burst, which can then be expanded, revised, edited, and polished into something that’s a more realistic 80,000 to 120,000 word final draft. It’s only writing “too fast” if you turn out not to be able to write in bursts at all. First drafts are usually not that great (Anne Lamott has an entire chapter in her classic how-to-write book Bird by Bird titled “Shitty First Drafts”); the point is that they are not intended to be submitted, but to be improved in later revisions. 50,000 words is, indeed, too short for the current publishing market, but see above comments about first drafts, revising, and expanding.
There are, of course, plenty of process problems and unfounded beliefs about writing that Nanowrimo does not address, largely because they are opposite from the ones Nanowrimo helps with and/or result from writing processes that are incompatible with burst writing. And it is true that some non-burst writers may get talked into trying Nanowrimo and end up getting discouraged instead of realizing that this is simply not their type of process. But I don’t see that as a huge problem, because Nanowrimo isn’t billed as the way to write in the first place. I doubt I’ll ever participate myself, because I’m a plodding rolling reviser (not to mention that since I broke my elbow two years ago, I have a hard time typing for long enough per day to produce that kind of word count, and if I do, I pay for it). But it sounds like a fun challenge with loads of support, and if it appeals to you, go for it.
I think I have a part of each of those problems listed above 😉 I’ve done NaNo before and have tweaked it so it works for me. I don’t hit the 50,000, but it helps me get into a routine and have some accountability so that I push forward. As with everything, mileage may vary, so you have to do what works for you.
Heh – I’m trying to do NaNoWiMo this year. I even have a submission form up and… its still open 24 hrs later. STILL haven’t committed to the “submit” button.
Obviously I’m in the “Timid Writer” category.
Is there hope for a Perfectionist, Easily-distracted, Quickly-bored, Insecure Writer?
I did NaNoWriMo a few years running but found it prone to diminishing returns. The first time was great—it’s a wonderful feeling knowing that you are participating in something that people all over the world are also involved in, and writing fast somewhat helped outpace the Internal Editor—but I found in subsequent participations that I was just performing Stupid Tricks to pad my word count in order to reach 50k, not good plan for writing anything (unless you’re in academia, where they seem to like that sort of dross).
So, my advice is to, by all means, do NaNoWriMo – maybe once.
I assume very few writers on a novel-a-year schedule will do rough drafts ONLY in November and then revise/rewrite the rest of the year. If you find that 50k is an unreasonable goal, set a more helpful word count goal. Fast enough to outpace Internal Editor, but with enough give that you don’t over-stress your creativity.
I personally am only planning on a bit over 20k (and… giving myself permission to wimp out if my shoulder complains)
This year I’m planning to do a sort of adapted personal NaNo – I’m not signing up for the official thing, but I want to get myself back on track with my sadly neglected WiP by setting myself a goal of X number of pages per week for the month of November. (The number of pages is subject to change – I’m going to start with four pages this week, then possibly raise the number for subsequent weeks depending on how that goes.)
I did that a several years back to finish the incomplete and stuck first draft of my then-WIP. I didn’t write the full 50,000 words, but since the last two words were “the” and “end” I called it a wrap.
Nanowrimo isn’t billed as *the* way to write
That’s actually one of my major complaints about NaNo — it may not be billed that way, but once you get into it, there is a lot of pressure to write “the NaNo way”: you must shut down your Internal Editor, you must type at high speed without thinking about what you’re writing, you must not look back at what you’ve done so far. Now, if the just spew it out and don’t worry if it’s good approach works for you, hey, great, fine, go for it — but for me, it’s the antithesis of helpful. When I did NaNo, I really had to get quite firm with a few people who were insisting that I had to do it their way, even though my way had me on track for word-count and was producing work I was happy with.
I loved the accountability, however. Everything from the little bar charts to the multi-thousand-user forum (all of whom can see your current word count) was just what I needed to get butt in chair and hands on keyboard on a steady basis. And there’s a lot to be said for a massive, high-participation forum when you’ve got a research question or just need to vent to somebody.
I think NaNo has a lot of merits and I’d recommend anyone who’s curious give it a try, but you do have to be prepared to stick to your guns if The NaNo Way is not your way.
I went to a writing seminar once that landed on November 1st. The presenter gave an analogy.
His wife is a potter. The first thing she does for any project is put clay on the wheel. Once she has enough clay, she can smooth it and shape it into just about anything.
Writing is similar. You have to have clay on the wheel before you can really start to work. The clay is your first draft.
Nanowrimo is great for putting clay on the wheel. You just can’t think you’re done at that point.
I’m in the thick of it right now (write now?). I had to adapt it for October so I could finish a 120,000 word draft before starting on the NaNoWriMo project I had in mind.
In previous Novembers, writing the first draft guided missile-style forced me to Just Get It out, and afterward realizing that I could trust my subconscious to get a lot of things *right*. That said, the pace killed me and I had not a clue how to revise or bring out the book.
But I think with age (I’m 51 now) comes the realization that if I’m going to write, and develop a body of publishable work, this is the method I have to adapt and use. It works.