I don’t participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, often abbreviated to NaNo) every year. For two years, dealing with my husband’s stroke has made writing impossible. At other times, like this year, I’ve been in editing mode, which is a NaNo no-no. The goal is 50,000 words of a new novel.
But I’ve done NaNo three times, “won” twice by hitting the 50,000 wordcount mark, but had a blast each time.
I have heard detractors of NaNo say that it’s a waste of time, that participants produce 50,000 words of garbage that are promptly forgotten, etc… What I say is it’s great for people who always said they wanted to write a novel to give it a try. If nothing else, they learn something about the work of writing and themselves. But it can also be a boon to serious aspiring writers.
If you are the sort of writer who strives to get every chapter right before moving on to the next–and I know several successful, published authors who work this way–NaNo is probably not for you. Unless you have a lot of time and are a fast writer, you may not be able to write as cleanly as you like and still reach the 50,000 word goal.
But if you are like me and many other writers, NaNo is the opportunity to get in a good chunk of first draft. IMHO it’s not about writing 50,000 words that can be submitted to an agent or publisher; it’s about generating ideas and learning about one’s characters.
I find the wordcount goal helps me to focus on that, by ignoring things I can fix later: awkward sentences, background research that doesn’t affect the plot, bits of dialogue that don’t feel period, etc… Although sometimes nuggets of “keeper” prose sneak in, they are just a bonus. What matters is coming out with a lot of new ideas I can use in writing the next draft.
Some people don’t have as good an experience with NaNo as they’d hoped. I’ve heard them complain that they started generating pages of blather just to reach their daily wordcount goals. My advice to anyone this happens to is to stop. You need to forget the wordcount at that point, because you may be bogging down on something important. It’s likely you’ve lost touch with your characters.
It’s time to back away, take a walk, have a cup of tea, brainstorm with a friend, do a character interview or a Goal/Motivation/Conflict chart as in Deb Dixon’s book. Anything that will get energy back into the story. If you solve it, you may be behind on your pagecount but you’ll be closer to the real goal of NaNo. IMHO a lesser wordcount and a lot of good ideas are worth more than a winner’s certificate and 50,000 words of a story you’ve lost interest in.
But you also may find that your enthusiasm for the story will rebound and you may end up with the certificate too.
So that’s my tuppence on NaNoWriMo. Anyone heading into it, good luck and have fun!