NaNoWriMo – Oh yes, it’s that time again

Yup, it’s November.  It’s also National Novel Writing Month.

I knew of NaNoWriMo a couple of years back, but didn’t really get it.  Mostly it just seemed like (yet another) opportunity for would-be writers to harp on about their ‘process’ or their wonderful/woeful word count.  I do not care for these people.

But then, I looked into the matter in more detail, and now reckon they (the idea people, not the writing people) might be on to something.

The way I see it, two main things get in the way of novels falling out of every other person with hands/paper/keyboards, these things being lack of imagination (or ‘plot’*) and lack of drive – which can, on occasion, be passed off as The Fear.  Novels are big and scary, so it’s not surprising they are perceived as a massive and vaguely noble undertaking – think about it, people are voluntarily doing work in the time they could spend watching shit TV or pursuing miscellaneous social folly.

NaNoWriMo is about getting over the fear hurdle, encouraging people with The Urge to get off their arse and do something about it.  The aim is not to write a proper novel in one month, but to write a novel-sized amount of words, shattering the delusion that every sentence injected onto the page has gotta be a good one.  Afterwards, you might have a couple of good bits, but mostly you’ll have a lot of drivel.

The thing is, that’s okay – it’s even sort of the point.  Having broken the spell, now you are free to sift though your efforts, pick out anything worth salvaging, and start again later, happy in the knowledge that you can at least write quantity.  You can work on quality some other time.

They say it better:

“Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

So, there you go.  The website also offers pep talks, tips, forums and the like, but you can still take part without the fluff.

 

*Fancy forsaking plot for something gleefully non-narrative?  Good luck with that.

Tagged: NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month

Posted in: sort it out