November 3, 2002

• Redeeming the Time

  
  

  I have officially made up for my poor showing yesterday.  My total wordcount now stands at 6,478.  Whooo Hoooo!  Now that's not to say that the book is going exactly as I had envisioned.  My murder victim refuses to be killed.  He's fighting back in ways I hadn't planned.  But, I have him on the run ladies and gentlemen. 

  
  

  Since I spent my afternoon writing, I have not been around to visit your sites.  Bad me.  I will try to devote time to commenting over the next month, but don't give up on me if you don't hear much.  I WILL be reading.  But, it takes me a lot longer to come to your site and comment than it does to read your blogs in my SIR list. 

  
  

  I've set myself an intermediate goal with an intermediate reward.  If I have reached the 25,000 word mark by Midnight November 15, I'm making Fugitive buy me a banana split at Sonic.    And let me tell you, if I make that 50,000 mark by November 30 - I plan on making Tim spoil me rotten. 

  
  

  I copied and pasted the following snippets from the NaNoWriMo website primarily so that it will look like I put a lot of work into writing a LOOONG blog and you'll all be impressed with my prodigious output.    But, also because I know you guys.  I read your sites.  I laugh and cry and get grossed out by the things you say, because you say them well.  You have me engaged in your journalling.  I'm hoping that you will read these bits and be encouraged - motivated - to climb on board and write your own 50,000 words. 

  
  

  What is NaNoWriMo?

  
  

  
  
  • Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
    
  
  
  • Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
    
  
  
  • Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

  
  

  If I'm just writing 50,000 words of crap, why bother? Why not just write a real novel later, when I have more time?
  

  
  

  There are three reasons.
  

  1) If you don't do it now, you probably never will. Novel writing is mostly a "one day" event. As in "One day, I'd like to write a novel." Here's the truth: 99% of us, if left to our own devices, would never make the time to write a novel. It's just so far outside our normal lives that it constantly slips down to the bottom of our to-do lists. The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START. Once you have the first five chapters under your belt, the rest will come easily. Or painfully. But it will come. And you'll have friends to help you see it through to 50k.
  

  2) Aiming low is the best way to succeed. With entry-level novel writing, shooting for the moon is the surest way to get nowhere. With high expectations, everything you write will sound cheesy and awkward. Once you start evaluating your story in terms of word count, you take that pressure off yourself. And you'll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and a ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you'd never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it.
  

  3) Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.
  

  Why 50,000 words? Isn't that more of a novella?
  Our experiences over the past three years show that 50,000 is a difficult but doable goal, even for people with full-time jobs. The length makes it a short novel. We don't use the word "novella" because it doesn't seem to impress people the way "novel" does.
  

  Did you know there is a group in Vancouver that writes novels in a weekend?
  Yes, and they are fools. Everyone knows that any deep and lasting work of art takes an entire month to make.
  

  Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?
  NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month.
  

  Part of the reason we organize NaNoWriMo is just to get a book written. We love the fringe benefits accrued to novelists. For one month out of the year, we can stew and storm, and make a huge mess of our apartments and drink lots of coffee at odd hours. And we can do all of these things loudly, in front of people. As satisfying as it is to reach deep within yourself and pull out an unexpectedly passable work of art, it is equally (if not more) satisfying to be able to dramatize the process at social gatherings.
  

  But that artsy drama window is woefully short. The other reason we do NaNoWriMo is because the glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that.

  
  

   

  • 8:52 pm
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