Okay, now I'm not so sure about this. >_>;
So I went and signed up for NaNoWriMo. I figured I have 9 hours a day for 22 days in November during which I'm basically paid to sit on my ass and not do much. Even the "busy" days in my building only take up maybe two or three hours doing actual work, so I'm sure I can bang out 50k in the month. Heck, just writing on those days for 8ish hours, it's only 240 and some change words an hour and I've done that on my own. We'll see how this goes.
However, I'm not so sure about the "spirit" of this thing anymore. Maybe some of those who read this have also run across the person on lj who is adamantly against NaNoWriMo because of it's attitude of "quantity over quality"? Well, now that I've gotten the little email for registering, I'm not sure I can argue with that person too much. I mean, look at some of these select quotes:
Many towns have Municipal Liaisons to organize NaNo write-ins and get-togethers in October and November, and affiliating with a region will automatically add you to the update list.
So now I can sit around in a room with random people I don't know and write? You mean gatherings of people... to sit around and basically ignore each other? Because if you're talking to people, you're not writing. And maybe that's one of the reasons more than 75% of people who sign up never complete it. I'm not sure how "thrilling" it is to have a success rate of 15 to 18 percent either. Last year, 101,000 people signed up, but only a bit over 15K finished. And it's not like they care about the quality of the written stuff.
Picking a Home Region begins adding your word-count to your region's cumulative tally, allowing you to do your part in crushing the spirits of NaNoWriMo authors in rival cities and towns.
Oh. So "crushing the spirits" of fellow participants is a good thing. Maybe that is a reason for the amazingly high failure rate.
You'll find many great tips in the forums, and we'll be sending pep talks directly to your inbox during November. But for now, here's a quick overview of the three-and-a-half things we wish we had known for our first NaNoWriMo.
Lovely. So you're going to further distract me from writing? Thanks.
1) It's okay to not know what you're doing. Really. You've read a lot of novels, so you're completely up to the challenge of writing one.
Um, no. If everyone who reads a novel is capable of writing one, we'd have a lot more novels out there. There are plenty of people who shouldn't write. Really. If you don't believe me, try reading fanfic.
Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you're not sure what that story might be right now.
Perhaps this is why we have things like Twilight. >_>;;;
In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.
There's the "embrace imperfection" that is clunky prose and attack of the urples, and then there's "embrace imperfection" that you find on the Pit. Getting into the habit of writing with poor grammar and spelling will effect your writing. And not positively.
Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.
Because the humiliation of not finishing might not ever "crush the spirits" of a first time novelist. And apparently, it's more likely to not finish than it is to finish, so you're even more likely to have the lovely crushing humiliation.
Seriously, I'm not so sure I want to be part of this next year. I'll do it this year because I've signed up, but I'm a writer because I enjoy writing. Not because I want to "crush the spirits" of other writers! And certainly not because I want to write crap or need "the looming specter of personal humiliation" to drive me onwards.
I certainly have doubts about this now. >_>;;
However, I'm not so sure about the "spirit" of this thing anymore. Maybe some of those who read this have also run across the person on lj who is adamantly against NaNoWriMo because of it's attitude of "quantity over quality"? Well, now that I've gotten the little email for registering, I'm not sure I can argue with that person too much. I mean, look at some of these select quotes:
Many towns have Municipal Liaisons to organize NaNo write-ins and get-togethers in October and November, and affiliating with a region will automatically add you to the update list.
So now I can sit around in a room with random people I don't know and write? You mean gatherings of people... to sit around and basically ignore each other? Because if you're talking to people, you're not writing. And maybe that's one of the reasons more than 75% of people who sign up never complete it. I'm not sure how "thrilling" it is to have a success rate of 15 to 18 percent either. Last year, 101,000 people signed up, but only a bit over 15K finished. And it's not like they care about the quality of the written stuff.
Picking a Home Region begins adding your word-count to your region's cumulative tally, allowing you to do your part in crushing the spirits of NaNoWriMo authors in rival cities and towns.
Oh. So "crushing the spirits" of fellow participants is a good thing. Maybe that is a reason for the amazingly high failure rate.
You'll find many great tips in the forums, and we'll be sending pep talks directly to your inbox during November. But for now, here's a quick overview of the three-and-a-half things we wish we had known for our first NaNoWriMo.
Lovely. So you're going to further distract me from writing? Thanks.
1) It's okay to not know what you're doing. Really. You've read a lot of novels, so you're completely up to the challenge of writing one.
Um, no. If everyone who reads a novel is capable of writing one, we'd have a lot more novels out there. There are plenty of people who shouldn't write. Really. If you don't believe me, try reading fanfic.
Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you're not sure what that story might be right now.
Perhaps this is why we have things like Twilight. >_>;;;
In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.
There's the "embrace imperfection" that is clunky prose and attack of the urples, and then there's "embrace imperfection" that you find on the Pit. Getting into the habit of writing with poor grammar and spelling will effect your writing. And not positively.
Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.
Because the humiliation of not finishing might not ever "crush the spirits" of a first time novelist. And apparently, it's more likely to not finish than it is to finish, so you're even more likely to have the lovely crushing humiliation.
Seriously, I'm not so sure I want to be part of this next year. I'll do it this year because I've signed up, but I'm a writer because I enjoy writing. Not because I want to "crush the spirits" of other writers! And certainly not because I want to write crap or need "the looming specter of personal humiliation" to drive me onwards.
I certainly have doubts about this now. >_>;;