NaNo: A Reflection
I have finished NaNo, both the word count and the novel. And so I feel I can now provide my thoughts on the whole experience:
I hated it.
There, that pretty much sums it up, I suppose. I hated it and I hated how it turned writing into yet another of my daily chores and I will never, ever do it again. There’s my elaboration.
But am I glad I did it? Probably. I’ve decided that what you learn from NaNo-what its real purpose is-is exactly how you write. And what I learned from NaNo is that I definitely do not write in the NaNo manner. I probably could have told you that even before I embarked upon it. I have never had trouble finishing a long work of fiction-I’ve finished dozens in my lifetime so far-but I had a novel that I really didn’t want to write, so I thought NaNo was a good time to write it. I would condense the writing of this story into a one-month period, and it would all be over with. And so that was partly my problem from the very beginning: I was writing something that I wasn’t really enjoying and didn’t really, deep down, want to write.
My first word of advice if you are thinking of doing NaNo: Pick something you are excited about, pick something you can’t wait to get out of you and onto paper. You are going to be spending so much time with it over the next month, you need to love it passionately.
Even, however, if I had picked something to write that I really loved, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the NaNo experience, because it took all the fun out of writing for me. I have written for as long as I can remember. I cannot recall a time when I did not create stories. And writing has always been an escape for me. It’s a chance to spend time in a world much more fun than the world I normally inhabit. NaNo seemed to eliminate that for me. Not only was I writing in a world I didn’t enjoy very much, I was also required to write in that world. Writing became another daily obligation, and I dreaded it. I would drag myself home from work, and I would be exhausted, and I would resent the novel and the writing ahead of me. I would write my words as quickly as possible, just to get them out, the same way I write briefs for work, wishing only that the whole thing would be over. In fact, I even seemed to develop the same bad habits I have when I write for work: In order to make myself feel like I was getting something done, I started throwing in unnecessary words, my writing littered with way too many adjectives and adverbs. Jlrpuck already says that I don’t use enough contractions; watching a word count definitely doesn’t help with that!
Is this how professional writers feel? I read the things that professional writers write about their craft, and they just sound so miserable all the time. And I think to myself, Is that what something you like being your job inevitably does to that thing that you liked?
There are as many different ways to write as they are writers in the universe, and you should find the way that works best for you, but my philosophy on writing is that it should be fun. I do so much, every day, that is decidedly not fun, so much that I do just because I have to but that I hate doing. I want writing to be the thing that I do simply because I enjoy it. Doing NaNo erased that part of writing for me, and it made me miserable. I felt that I had lost my means of escape. Maybe I will never write a piece of great literature, thinking this way. Maybe the lack of agony that accompanies my regular writing process dooms me to mediocrity. But I am fine with that, because writing makes me happy, and finding something simple that nonetheless makes you happy can be a very rare thing in this world. Until someone wants to pay me for my writing, I find it completely unnecessary to make writing feel like my job.
Is the novel I ended up with any good? Who knows? Possibly? I haven’t re-read it at all, which is, again, unlike me as a writer, but is also, as I understand it, NaNo policy. It’s probably, I suspect, neither good nor bad, but just is. I also suspect that it will be the black sheep of my writing family. I re-read everything I write compulsively, but this novel will most likely sit on my hard drive, no doubt feeling lonely and abandoned. But I am glad it’s written. I think it’s something I did need to get out of me. I don’t know if I found it cathartic or not, but at least it’s done.
If you have tried NaNo and it didn’t work for you, if you were unable to get a novel out in that span of time, if you hated the process and hated the novel and doubted whether you were a writer at all, I have this to say you: All that means is that NaNo is not for you. It works for some people, and it doesn’t work for others, and that is the way that the world goes. If you are having difficulty getting yourself to finish a novel, what I would propose is that you live with it as much as possible. When I am in the middle of writing something, the characters are always with me. I try out lines of dialogue as I’m showering or getting dressed, as I’m walking on my commute, as I’m making a cup of tea at work. Any moments I get where my thoughts can be my own are spent in my story, trying to work it out. When you spend that much time in a universe, I think it helps propel you forward to finishing it. (Of course, this is another vote in favor of liking your universe. If you can’t stand to spend much time with your characters, than NaNo is probably best for you.)
If NaNo works for you, then, by all means, keep doing it, and I am grateful for all of the fabulous fic that comes our way through it. But, if NaNo doesn’t work for you, that is no reflection upon you at all. Write when you want to. Write when you feel like it. It will all work out.