No More NaNoWriMo

In honor of Halloween: I'm baa-aack! I know, scary.

Anyway, I thought, since so many people are gearing up for NaNoWriMo next month that I'd give my two bits on the subject. You don't know what NaNoWriMo is? Stinks to be you. No, just kidding. It is an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. It is where writers and aspiring writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word or more novel during the 30 days of November. There are websites and social groups that get together to help those people meet their goals and stick to task.

I did this back in 2005 for the first time. From that 50,000 word jumble of chaos, I ended up with the beginnings of my first published novel, The Dragon War Relic. I learned a lot of great things about myself during my experience. Probably the most important thing was: what it takes to write a novel. It takes a lot of time and patience and persistence. But, if you take the time, it can be done; that was the next most important lesson. There is a great sense of pride when we take on a difficult task and persevere long enough to create a finished novel.

I've written about his before, but I also learned that I'm a discovery writer. I think NaNoWriMo caters more to discovery writers because you're just supposed to sit down and start writing come what may. And no looking in the rear view mirror and going back to fix things. Since then, of course, I have learned that if you want character arcs and plots that make sense, there does need to be some kind of planning. Oh, and it is okay to have an outline to do it, but not necessary. Fortunately for me, I didn't.

As much as I honor NaNoWriMo for the start it gave me, I don't think I'll ever do it again. Why? Because it taught me how to focus and write. I can now do that whenever I want and for however long I want. When I'm in my normal writing mode, I put out about 12,000 to 15,000 words a week anyway, which is about a NaNoWriMo pace. I don't need to see how many words I can write in a month because I now know. Just last month I completed a novel and the second draft within 30 days. Of course, I'm not always going at that pace because I also have to take the things I've drafted and then polish them up in hopes of publication. In fact, the second draft usually takes me longer than the first because I have to spend a lot of time working out some of the issues and plot holes that I discover.

So, if you aren't a writer yet and want to be, NaNoWriMo can be the right kick in the pants to get you started. Just remember to be nice to your family and take a break every now and then to let your creative juices get flowing again.

2B an Author part 2

The biggest hurdle I faced when it came to writing was strategy. I had taken some writing classes and read several books and I tried to follow the advice they gave. It didn't work. I kept getting stuck.

My biggest problem is that I'm a perfectionist. I would write a chapter, then want to go back and write and rewrite until it was the finished product. Of course, by then, all forward momentum was lost. I started four or five novels this way that ended at chapter three or four.

The other problem was that I had been taught that you are supposed to outline your stories. I would come up with outlines, but they never seemed to work for me. I figured that I must be a failure at writing and gave up for a while.

My daughter discovered an event called NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Three years ago, we both decided to do this together, you know, so that we would have someone to commiserated with when we got frustrated. The main objective of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days (November, usually).

When I got started, the perfectionist in me said, "Let's go back and fix what we just wrote." In which I would have to answer back, "Quiet, we don't have time for that!" (Yes, I do have conversations with myself).

It turned out, in order to stay on schedule, that I had to turn off the perfectionist voice (it whined a lot, but eventually settled down to a whimper). This led me to find out that I am what they call a 'discovery writer'. Most of the time, I have no idea what is going to happen in the next chapter until I write it. This makes it exciting for me and can lead into unpredictable situations. There are also plenty of pitfalls, too, which I will maybe go into another time.

My main point is, though, that you, the aspiring author, needs to find a method that works for you. You might be an 'outliner' or you may be a 'discoverer' or somewhere in between. What you need to do is to try different writing approaches and see what works best for you. Just because some famous writer uses a certain approach doesn't mean it will work for you. We're all different. So, do some research and find out how different writers approach their art and then try their method for a bit. If that doesn't work, try something else until you find something that works.