pseydtonne | Why NaNoWriMo can be bad for the soul

I started writing this in response to

takfar's desire to give up on writing a novel in a month. Note that this post isn't finished -- I started it when I was signing off the phone at work and I wanted to save it online so that I could finish it at home.

I've checked out National November Write a book in a Month and decided against it because it doesn't teach the author anything. The theory is that you get it out of your system, 'it' being "that fear you'll never write the Great American Novel" or something like it.

You aren't supposed to edit. You aren't supposed to rethink, refine, re-anything (such as "read"). You just write. When you're done, you have a book you'll never want to touch again. You can't go back to edit it because it won't make enough sense for you to figure out the story. You can't make a good story because you're too busy grinding out needless words.

I hate NaNoWriMo. Can you tell? I would rather get someone to write 400 words each weekday of a month and spend one day of each weekend editing what got written. The sets of 400-odd words wouldn't need to be related. They'd just have to lead to one to 20 essays, each of which the author could say "that's something I think every mofo in the English-speaking world should read, whether I got paid or not."

The organizer's web site claims "The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." It also says not to edit, "to build without tearing down."

So you should write 175 pages because everyone else is? How about National Starve Yourself to Look Like a Supermodel Month (NaStY SLiM)? Why contribute junk to the world? Write things you'd be proud to produce. National Have a Baby Cuz That's What the Bible Says Month (NaBaCuBiSm) is similarly misguided.

Shouldn't everyone create? Hells yeah! However, grinding out text is not the same as running a marathon. Writing down words is only a minor portion of learning to be a writer. Editing, cutting, tossing, criticizing one's own efforts, reworking and refining are what make real writers instead of Rod McKuens. What is the point of a 1500-page novel that opens with a dangling participle (Norman Mailor's "harlot's ghost")? What is the point of superfluous text? Why be Anne Rice when you could be Ray Bradbury? Why be David Foster Wallace when you could be George Orwell?