Some NaNo musings
I love that so many of you dudes are doing NaNo! It fills my heart with glee and happy. NaNoWriMo is a Super Important Monster to me, in that if I'd never done it that first year, I probably would have never written anything ever again my entire life.
As a kid I was always like, "I'm gonna be a writer when I grow up!" But I never knew what to write about. Then as I got older and became a cynical teenager, I was like, "Pah, this writing thing will never pan out because I suck at finishing things and also I still don't know what to write about. I think I'll become a rock star instead."
Of course the rock star thing fell through, as things like that often do. I graduated high school neither a rock star nor a writer. But then that November, a friend of mine posted to her LJ, "I don't think I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year," and it was October 31st and I clicked on the link because I was all, "What is this NaNoWriMo business?" and I read the entire contents of the site (which at that point were not as massive, as NaNo was only in its third year), and I was like, "I will do this even though I will FAIL EPICALLY" and the thing is, I didn't fail epically. I actually COMPLETED a novel.
And then I tried it the next year. And the year after that. And, okay, I failed those two years, but then I KEPT DOING IT and I haven't failed since, and then I started realizing that I didn't have to only write in November, there were eleven other perfectly valid months in the year for writing.
And that's how I've ended up with eight rough drafts, a handful of drafts in progress and a parody of the entire Twilight series, and I still don't know what to write about, but NaNoWriMo taught me that doesn't matter as long as I can write it really fast.
The point of this story is I've got the writing thing down. I think the next step is learning that whole "revision" thing.
HAPPY NANO, EVERYBODY! KEEP ON KEEPING ON AND POST YOUR WORD COUNTS AND HEY, WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERE, WHY NOT CHALLENGE EACH OTHER TO SOME WORD WARS? AND THROW OUT SOME DARES? I LOVE YOU GUYS.
PS: Oh yeah, I totally forgot that the whole reason I started making this post was to mention that I'm kandigurl on the NaNo site (as well as on LJ!) if you want to be my writing buddy.
As a kid I was always like, "I'm gonna be a writer when I grow up!" But I never knew what to write about. Then as I got older and became a cynical teenager, I was like, "Pah, this writing thing will never pan out because I suck at finishing things and also I still don't know what to write about. I think I'll become a rock star instead."
Of course the rock star thing fell through, as things like that often do. I graduated high school neither a rock star nor a writer. But then that November, a friend of mine posted to her LJ, "I don't think I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year," and it was October 31st and I clicked on the link because I was all, "What is this NaNoWriMo business?" and I read the entire contents of the site (which at that point were not as massive, as NaNo was only in its third year), and I was like, "I will do this even though I will FAIL EPICALLY" and the thing is, I didn't fail epically. I actually COMPLETED a novel.
And then I tried it the next year. And the year after that. And, okay, I failed those two years, but then I KEPT DOING IT and I haven't failed since, and then I started realizing that I didn't have to only write in November, there were eleven other perfectly valid months in the year for writing.
And that's how I've ended up with eight rough drafts, a handful of drafts in progress and a parody of the entire Twilight series, and I still don't know what to write about, but NaNoWriMo taught me that doesn't matter as long as I can write it really fast.
The point of this story is I've got the writing thing down. I think the next step is learning that whole "revision" thing.
HAPPY NANO, EVERYBODY! KEEP ON KEEPING ON AND POST YOUR WORD COUNTS AND HEY, WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERE, WHY NOT CHALLENGE EACH OTHER TO SOME WORD WARS? AND THROW OUT SOME DARES? I LOVE YOU GUYS.
PS: Oh yeah, I totally forgot that the whole reason I started making this post was to mention that I'm kandigurl on the NaNo site (as well as on LJ!) if you want to be my writing buddy.