Why NaNoWriMo can be bad for the soul

[pseydtonne]

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?

Comments

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

pssssssst.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'll debate you on this, and not the least because I'm doing it.

The point, for me at least, is NOT to write the "Great American Novel", but to have an excuse to write and to keep writing. I don't expect what I end up with will be the perfect novel. But neither do I expect to throw away the X words I produce. I expect there will be something in the middle. Now, I know I could just write a bunch of shlock in a row and pass the (completely arbitrary) 50k limit, but I'm going to try to write something that hangs together.

Reacting to what you've posted:

1. What *is* superfluous text? It sounds like you might be so paralyzed by the thought of writing the wrong thing that you don't write at all. Many people are like this. NaNoWriMo gives these people a "starting gun" to go, write, write, write, and push off the editing till later. Why is this good?

In my experience, writing is something you get better at by doing. Too many people start to write, then stop because they think what they're writing is crap.

And it may well be.

But not writing is not going to make you write better. This is a key point here. And people *don't* write, because they think what they write is crap. Looking at your recent entry, I have to put you in this category.


2. Unlike starving yourself, procreating, or whatever, during Writing Month, you are simultaneously practicing a skill (and hopefully getting better at it, even if you aren't editing) and producing something that can hopefully be edited into a real product. If it isn't at all useful as text, it is at least useful as a learning experience, on a few levels:

a. writing helps you get better at writing
b. when you write you discover things about yourself you won't otherwise discover
c. when you write you discover things about your writing style you won't otherwise discover
d.

3. Grinding out a novel in a month *is* the same as running a marathon. Actually, it's better, because you don't have to drink that nasty orange stuff.

While yes, editing, tossing, etc. are a HUGE part of writing, the problem I see in some people is that they do too much of that and too little generation. To edit, you must have something to edit. To toss, you must have something to toss. And too many of my friends have said the same thing: "I started writing, but I stopped because I didn't think it was very good." NaNoWriMo is a kick in the ass for them.

4. 1500-page novels usually suck, it is true. There are too many writers out there who write too much instead of the right amount. As my english teacher put it, "Make the paper like a miniskirt - short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject!" But a 50,000 word novel is SHORT, for a novel. And yet it'll be three times the length of any single piece that I've ever written -- twice the length of my three-part short story cycle -- and so is quite daunting.

Who was it that used to generate 100 lines of poetry in the morning, and in the afternoon whittle them down to 10 lines? I forget. Some greek poet or something. But he *did* generate those 100 lines first -- and this month is for learning *that* process.

Hope this made you think, at least.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

ooh, kinky.

[harlequinaide.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree. No, it's not for everyone. It's probably not even for many of the people who try it. But it has its uses. Most people, even people who are decent writers, with track records and experience, get stuck. The thing that sticks people, and you may not have experience with this, is a fear of saying (or writing) anything at all. Everything gets second guessed out of existance.

Part of the point of this exercise is to silence that voice that says, constantly, "you can't do this." It's been said that real writers write a thousand words for a single good line, and that a writer has to write a million words of shit before they have developed the craft required to not suck. If one completes this exercise, then 1/20th of that million words has been written.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. And writing this, even writing fast and imperfect and bad, is practice. And, for some people, it will lead to revision, which is more important than writing, anyway.

Personally, as someone who's spent a lot of time and money and effort honing my craft, and has been blocked for a year, and has written more already this month than in the past six months together, this is a wonderful, beautiful thing. I'm sorry you don't see it. Like I said, it's not for everyone.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Tough but fair, you are.

I can't see why it has to be a novel, something with extra layers of complexity and interconnectivity that don't lend themselves to straight-line writing. Why not a novella -- something sufficiently long but centered on a single plot line? Perhaps a picaresque -- something that rambles from adventure to adventure? Why the multiple perspectives a novel needs?

It dawns on me that I've been having a fit against NaNoWriMo because I have fears. chaggagirl reminded me today that I should turn the Skeer stuff into a novel. Perhaps I'll use the month to develop proper outlines. I won't use one month to write; I'll use time to make skeletons and other stuff I often avoid.

Million words beforre you hit it, eh? Hmmmm.

-mulling like wine with stuff in it, Dante