By National Novel Writing Month (affectionately shortened to NaNoWriMo) made an appearance on the WordPress.com blog recently in conjunction with an invitation to warm up for the November project by participating in the PostADay challenge.
I attempted NaNoWriMo once in earnest and began preparing for it another time but decided in the end not to participate. I have really mixed feelings about the project, since I know that its participants produce a lot of really bad writing. That’s even somewhat by design, as the organizers emphasize word volume over word quality. And I see the point — better to have a rough stone you can polish into a fine surface than no stone at all. Still, when it comes down to just spilling a bunch of dreck onto the page, I have a really hard time. In my attempt in earnest, I wrote about 30,000 words of mostly awful prose before I could make myself do no more. I suspect that if you produce too big a pile of junk, the editing process becomes oppressive and the exercise futile.
The NaNoWriMo mentality strikes me as a somewhat bloggish mentality. That is, I think the two sometimes share the impulse to set the bar a bit lower for the sake of getting words on the screen. My tendency to prefer writing thoughtful, well-edited pieces is often to the detriment of documenting my life. How many posts I should have written about my children and didn’t because I didn’t feel like I had the time to do the posts their proper justice I can’t count. I would almost certainly benefit from approaching my blogging with a more NaNoWriMo-like mentality.
How about you? Do you leave things unwritten because you don’t feel like you have the time to perfect them? Would you consider setting up a private blog (perhaps using the p2 theme, which is great for quick updates) to capture the rough-draft ideas that you’re not keen on publishing but would like to preserve? I’m thinking of doing just that. Do you find that writing just to write leads you ultimately to write better or just to write more? And finally, are you willing to fess up to participating in NaNoWriMo?
Currently blogless? You’re a click away from sharing your story.
Create your blog at WordPress.com
The Daily Post 
I think I am a person who needs to just get on with it, or it would never get out of me.I hesitate with nanowrimo because I am not sure if I can make it. Doing postaday challenge already showed me up for not being able to do it everyday. The attempt with nanowrimo might just get it out of me by making me get on with it. Perhaps for me personally, the very attempt at it is itself a win, let’s not even talk about getting to 50 k.Still thinking about it.
LikeLike
I’m a five year nano veteran. It’s true that participants “churn out a lot of dreck” as you say, but that is true of any group of writers anywhere. I firmly believe writing is like any other skilled activity. In order to do it well, you have to practice. Listening to a child practice piano may be painful at first. But we know with practice, the musical quality will improve. We know practice is important and necessary.
National Novel Writing Month forces us to practice intensely every day for a full month. That is no small thing.
LikeLike
So you say a lot of Nano participants produce bad writing, well, some of the Daily Post participants post some awful writing as well. You can’t say a certain thing is at fault – because I’ve read some rather good (and published!) Nano submissions, as well as some good Daily Post writings.
Just because you, yourself, couldn’t write anything good for Nano, nor reach 50k, doesn’t give you a right to blame a writing community 🙂
Poor judgement on your behalf. Thankfully, you’re not the usual Daily Post poster, because I would quickly stop participating if all of the writers here were as narrowminded as you.
Also, yes, have participated in Nano for the last six years and I’ve written some rather good things for it. The community might focus on word count but we also have a lot of fun meet ups where we do word wars and such, as well, the community is alot more friendly than most others. No elitism and such.
Don’t judge unless you’re willing to take into consideration that there’s more than just “a word count”. Just sayin’.
LikeLike
Oh dear, NIXY. I really don’t mean to be judgmental. The NaNoWriMo organizers have this to say about the project: “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap.” Naturally, as in most any endeavor, there’ll be both good and bad. The point is that by emphasizing quantity over quality, the project almost by definition will result in lots of awful prose (and it’s the organizers who say as much). If I were being elitist, I’d look down my nose at the project and laugh about those participating, when I’ve come right out and said that I have tried/failed and that in spite of my misgivings, the project appeals to me. In fact, I go so far as to say that a NaNoWriMo mentality would probably do me good! So please don’t run off yet. I think it’s really cool that so many people are interested in NaNoWriMo, and your point about the community aspect — which is something I’m personally too shy to participate very much in — is a great one. Thanks for speaking up.
LikeLike
Not to beat the point to death, but when you are writing as fast as you can, you don’t have time to let the left brain ponder how futile your words and writing are. At 1,667 words PER DAY, every day for 30 days, all you have time to do is write. As nearly every writer knows, the material from the right brain is far superior to material from the left brain.
Thus, the emphasis on quantity forces the writer to quit pondering and get to work just writing.
The other freeing thing about Nano is that not one single person reads your story unless you give it to them to read. Not even the Nano judge reads it. They even suggest you scramble your words before submitting, if you are bothered by the Nano judge reading it. All the judge is is a piece of software that calculates the number of words in your manuscript.
There you have it – a formula for success. No time to ponder and try to get each word perfect (and in so doing, killing the vitality of the story) and no fear that someone will read and criticize it. You’re free. And often, in amongst the inevitable dreck, lies a jewel of literature, or at least something pretty good to read.
LikeLike
I feel the same way about NaNoWriMo and I won’t enter because I know it won’t be long before anything I write would end up a confusing mess. I always aim for clarity and because of that I feel I have to keep going back to edit and check what I’ve written before so that the new(er) material remains coherent.
LikeLike
I am new to this so I know not of what I speak…it seems to me that the value or lack will relate to the prompts on NaNoWriMo. I am pondering trying it out, though I don’t know if I have time for the word count…still I want to see the prompts.
LikeLike
It’s been a few years since I tried NaNoWriMo but I don’t remember them having prompts as such, you just had a daily word count goal so that you could finish writing your novel in 30 days.
LikeLike
I did NaNoWriMo last year–didn’t make the goal, but have a plot and characters that I’ve continued working with and still excite me. And I did ScriptFrenzy last April, finished, and am almost finished my third script for a series. I’ve written novels and/or started them before, but it’s the blissful excitement, the willingness to carve out some time daily, that makes NaNoWriMo fun. I try to take a genre or direction I’ve never tried, and see where it leads. I still believe no writing’s ever wasted, even if it’s on a rarely-visited blog!
LikeLike
One of the very first things I posted on my blog was an explanation of why NaNoWriMo didn’t work for me! http://confessionsofaprocrastinator.wordpress.com/behind-the-blog/
LikeLike
Mr. Daryl, it seems that the trial-and-error method doesn’t fit you. Your post reminded me of the article written by Malcolm Gladwell here: Late Bloomers
Why do we equate genius with precocity?
Cheers from the Philippines. 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for this article. I don’t have time to read beyond the first page for now, but I’m intrigued and have sent it to my Kindle for later.
LikeLike
Its helpful them who participating in the PostADay challenge….
LikeLike
Well, its right that what’s the use of bad writting but atleast these things keep me up in writting.if I participate I may not write a very best selling novel but if I don’t than may be I never ever able to write a novel.and one more benefit is I always think that I can write a novel but never was sure how to begin and will I be able to write or not.by this I can atleast try and know my ability .if I can’t than atleast I wud know that this line is not for me and I will take this crap out of my mind.morever its better to write a bad novel than to keep dreaming of writing very good one
LikeLike
What appealed to me the most in this NaNoWriMo event is the idea that we don’t have to be afraid of producing low-quality writing. I thought I was alone with my battle against ‘oh, I can’t be that good’ or ‘this isn’t good enough’ stage. I almost always quit when I get there.
As with the rough drafts, I usually have them and then they fly away instantly. But I got this idea right here on dailypost (I think) about keeping a notebook with me all the time, and to just jot down these ideas and not care whether I can write a whole post about it or not. It’s working great for me.
🙂
LikeLike
I entered NaNoWriMo properly last year and ‘won’. It was a struggle to get the words down but I had been researching this particular book for about five years and hadn’t committed anything apart from about a thousand words. I used the month to make sure I got something down and I’ve spent this year redrafting it on and off. I’ve just finished in time for this year, lol!
I needed the impetus of getting so many words down every day. There were some days I wrote more than the aveerage and some I wrote less. Some, dare I say it, that I didn’t write at all. The looming deadline concentrated my efforts and I finished-yay!
This year I don’t have an idea- yet but I like the idea of using Scrivener in Windows (still beta after a year) to plan chapters- something I didn’t do last year. Who knows, maybe this one will write smoother and read better.
I am late to the daily posts too but write a few lines privately per day.
LikeLike
I wish I could trick myself into daily writing stints, good or bad. I write when the energy ‘moves’ me, and then I can’t stop writing until I’ve purged everything locked up in my head (and on my digital recorder). That’s my natural, creative tide ebbing and flowing! But, there was a nugget of information in the recent WordPress invitation to NaNoWriMo … how to set up a blog to look more like a book using a static front page to display a table of contents. It worked beautifully, and I transferred all the random Word files for my novel to a private blog, indexed on the static page and sorted using tabs by character (for now). Organizing my rough manuscript this way gave me a HUGE shot of energy and I haven’t stopped writing since.
LikeLike
Hey, that’s great news, Cheryl! Glad that hint gave you a boost.
LikeLike
Then you’re obviously not doing it write – er, right.
It’s interesting that you think because you had a bad experience, everyone must be experiencing the same and that there’s a pile of badly written stories as far as the eye can see.
NaNoWriMo 2010 was my first ever attempt and I have to say that I ROCKED it. I knocked the SOCKS off that thing and had a lot of fun. Don’t get me wrong! I was frustrated. I cried – in the manly way. I struggled with the ‘stepping stones’ to get from one scene to the next. In the end, I really hammered out a story that I loved. That code they gave out to ‘winners’ to get a free proof copy made me go back, polish it up, make sure things flowed smoothly through the whole thing, and then I got it in book form. Loved it.
What scares me is that I think that was beginner’s luck. I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo in August by writing out a sequel of sorts so that was fun too.
I’m sort of panicking because I’m going to be writing a story that does not take place in my usual fantasy world but rather in a different world that’s still brand new to me. I don’t want to fall flat on that one but I’m sure I got enough plots and ideas to make it fly. It’s been an idea that’s pestered me for the past two years and what better than NNWM to give it a hard solid crack?
I’d suggest you give it another try but it appears NNWM doesn’t work so well for you. It’s not for everyone.
LikeLike
I’m gearing up for Nano this year, but I’ll do it with a twist. I won’t write a novel. I’m going to write an autobiography (or at least the beginning of one). I’m excited! There are lots of options if you just don’t want to write a novel. Be a Nanowrimo Rebel! I wrote about it on my last blog post. 🙂
LikeLike
I’m with you Daryl. I value quality of writing over quantity any day. I’ve had many ideas that I’ve left unwritten because I didn’t have the time or the inspiration to do it well. Although the “rough stone to polish” analogy is apt, I’m wondering if slogging through all that rough is harder than just taking ones time to turn out something quality. I have 3 unwritten novels in my head: I could start any one of them of Nano, yet, I’m reluctant. I don’t want my blogging life, personal and professional lives to suffer in order to slog out a certain quantity of words.
LikeLike
You have written what is in my head. I have done Nanowrimo three times. Once I completed the 50,000. A lot of dreck in those many words. However, this year when I came back online, I have blogged every since the 24th of September. Some days I feel like I am on it and what I write is brilliant. Other days, I wonder why I even show up. It could be the source of brilliance behind Nanowrimo, I show up because I love to write. My writing isn’t always going to be brilliant. I may not go back and edit those entries but because of them, I hope I will write better. Thanks for your thoughts.
LikeLike
I’m iffy about doing it. I just started PostAWeek and I have to say it’s pretty fun. I have a somewhat hectic life and usually find myself blogging from my smartphone. Who knows!
LikeLike
Hi
Last year I was a NaNoWrMo novice. This year I kept using post2011 as an idea trap and am all geared up to type my novel. we are also planning a pre-event get togather at goa. 🙂 do join us.
LikeLike
With all honesty – I’m not a writer. I’ve always struggled with essays in uni for example but I strive for something that is in the best of my abilities. I am great as a speaker and communicating ideas on the spot – almost to the poing of just winging it.
But that doesn’t seem to translate in writing.
SO when I found out about this ‘post-a-day challenge’ – I got excited of working on my writing chops. As ultimately I wanna write some literature, mainly in Architecture and Design. I believe literature (and writing) is a great source of inspiration and genuine vessel of philosophy. But the main problem that I have is I wanna produce something that I will be proud of that is related to my name – designer symptom. it often hinders me actually posting my work – but it’s slowly getting better.
Hopefully for the next NaNoWrMo I will be better.
LikeLike
Same here..I have too many unwritten thoughts and memories because I don’t want to put it in writing without going through it thoroughly or explaining it well…Your writing says something about you so, why write something unreadable?
LikeLike
NaNoWriMo’s secret is the 50K number. People–both fans and critics of the project–get hung up on that number. It leads them to ask the questions about quality that you’ve asked, and possibly conclude that NaNoWriMo is “bad” because a lot of “bad” writing is “produced”. Which is utterly missing the point.
NaNoWriMo is about writing EVERY DAY. Chris Baty, the founder, basically pulled a number out of his behind that would break down into daily chunks that were long enough to be worth sitting down and doing. Many, many people who want to write–and who can write well–nevertheless won’t sit down every day and write. Their egos are too scared of not doing right by their ideas. NaNoWriMo humbles you, makes you realize that you have crap writing in you too (just like the “non-writers” who participate) and that IT’S OK.
It makes me sad when I hear people dis NaNo because “bad writing” is produced. Do you also crap on the idea of craft nights, drum circles, impromptu dance parties? The fetishization of perfection and salable “products” has eaten the soul right out of this world. Is it so wrong that an event exists to put a bit of joy back in?
And so what if some poor editors somewhere might have a bit more to in the slush pile each December. That’s pretty weak as far as occupational hazards go. They’re lucky they’re not unemployed.
LikeLike
Man, M.B., I couldn’t have put it better myself (and I have tried). Nano frees you to write freely without worrying what comes out. When you’re striving for 1667 words per day, you don’t have time to worry. So you write from your heart, enjoy it, take the time to write a poem (which is included in your word count), make chapter titles for more word count, and write.
And despite awful writing sometimes, but who cares, you get gems and jewels and treasure beyond worth. But if you say, don’t write because you’re liable to turn out crap, then you take away the joy and the opportunity to write some beautiful prose and the freedom to write without fear.
If you let yourself go, who knows what you will produce. Creativity is not an exact science. As one wise man once said, with all that horse sh*t around, there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.
LikeLike
Well, it was actually WordPress and the daily post who clued me onto NaNoWriMo in the first place. So I’ve known about it for one week, pondered the good and evil inherent in the concept and I’ve decided to give it a go.
I have no idea whether it is feasible for me to pull this off and maintain my full time job without going completely batty, but I figure it’s worth shot. If I get nothing else out of this November I hope to get some better writing discipline an a flair for ‘literary abandon’ (and if I’m very lucky, something to edit into the new year 🙂
LikeLike
I am tempted to respond to the National Novel Writing Month challenge. Hopefully it will aid me in drafting a very, very, rough draft of the second part of my historical romance novel.
I tend to write with extreme quality for publication (newspaper, magazine and novel). I do tend to lower the bar on the blog, but only moderately. If I didn’t nothing much would be posted.
In both situations, however, I insist on orderly presentation, correct spelling/grammar, consistent tense, good transitions, and accuracy.
I don’t expect what I write for National Novel Writing Month to turn out with the quality of a final draft. That takes work. But to have the initial draft plotted and fleshed out would be nice.
For the novel writing in November I will have to practice lowering the bar on my writing quality. It might turn out like advanced note-taking. However, I do feel it can be beneficial both in experiencing a new approach and in pushing my novel completion along.
What I want to know is CAN I DO IT?
LikeLike