An end to the Nano bullshit
I'm going to keep working on my book. There is so much work and reworking to be done to it, and I realize this and don't think it's automatically done just because it's December.
I was a writer for years, but I came to a dead stop about 6 years ago. I'm thankful for Nano as an opportunity and propelling force that helped me prove to myself that I can write again, that I can handle projects larger than serial 'zines or sonnets or 500-word-at-most essays and stories or blog posts.
I've read people bitch that Nano puts a lot of bad writing out into the world, sneering that we're not real writers, mistakenly assuming that we all think we're automatically finished at word 50,000 and ready to hit the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble. Well, maybe there are clunkers being produced this month, maybe some people are overambitious, but "real writers who write every day of the year" also produce terrible writing and think they're ready for publishing and, perhaps, need just as big a reality check; these are not special delusions to this competition and this month.
Not all writing will be commercially successful, whether it is deserving or not, much less read; not all writing deserves to be read. But everyone can give themselves the chance to create something for themselves, to push to see what a person can make. And many of us who participated this year will take the novel or base of the novel we've written during Nano and turn it into something really spectacular, or something that we're proud of, something that expresses our creativity or exorcises our demons or makes us laugh.
I have been inspired by my experience this month and plan to do so much more in the future, throughout the year - just like a "real" writer - now that this year's project is done.
I was a writer for years, but I came to a dead stop about 6 years ago. I'm thankful for Nano as an opportunity and propelling force that helped me prove to myself that I can write again, that I can handle projects larger than serial 'zines or sonnets or 500-word-at-most essays and stories or blog posts.
I've read people bitch that Nano puts a lot of bad writing out into the world, sneering that we're not real writers, mistakenly assuming that we all think we're automatically finished at word 50,000 and ready to hit the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble. Well, maybe there are clunkers being produced this month, maybe some people are overambitious, but "real writers who write every day of the year" also produce terrible writing and think they're ready for publishing and, perhaps, need just as big a reality check; these are not special delusions to this competition and this month.
Not all writing will be commercially successful, whether it is deserving or not, much less read; not all writing deserves to be read. But everyone can give themselves the chance to create something for themselves, to push to see what a person can make. And many of us who participated this year will take the novel or base of the novel we've written during Nano and turn it into something really spectacular, or something that we're proud of, something that expresses our creativity or exorcises our demons or makes us laugh.
I have been inspired by my experience this month and plan to do so much more in the future, throughout the year - just like a "real" writer - now that this year's project is done.