Thursday, October 4, 2012

NaNoWriMo, 2012

October, the month before the official start of NaNoWriMo , usually involves a lot of pre-novel planning. (Read: outlining, which I don't do, at least in any sort of formal way, but let's pretend I do, kay?) I even have something of a story plan. I don't really write plot-driven fiction, but I've found that with NaNo it helps to have something to propel you toward the ultimate goal.

In other words, I'm back in the game. I think.

I'm a NaNo old-timer, but my history with the novel-writing project is more than spotty. I joined in 2006, "won" in both '06 and '07, half-heartedly slogged though '08, abandoned the project early on in '09 and '10 (with the same story, which is totally cheating), and last year skipped the whole thing completely. I'm a NaNoWriMo slacker.

While I love the idea of having something that gets me, you know, writing --  actually putting pen to paper (or rather, fingertips to keyboard) --  without having the luxury of time to slow me down, I've never been a NaNo believer. I have nothing really to show for the two times I've won. A lot of words doesn't equal a novel. It was fun, hectic, trying, and infuriating at times, but I can't really call it writing. I can't call what I was doing writing. I even jokingly nicknamed my first attempt A Vomit-Inducing Piece of Undeniable Donkey Dung, which was pretty accurate. Although it pains me to admit it, I agree with Jonathan Franzen when it comes to the maxim that anyone can, or should, write a novel:
There's a truism, at least in the United States, that every person has one novel in him. In other words, one autobiographical novel. For people who write more than one, the truism can probably be amended to say every person has one easy-to-write novel in him, or ready-made meaningful narrative.
I have yet to cash in my lone "meaningful" narrative, and it's not something I want to waste on NaNo. It's not that I think NaNoWriMo is complete misuse of time, but it's so anathema to the slow, deliberate way I write that nothing usable comes out of it for me unless I absolutely ignore the clock.

If you spend any time on NaNo's forums, making that day's quota is a priority, bullshit or not, and let's face it, when you're writing for word count, there's going to be lots of crap to wade through later. The point of all this madness is to turn off one's inner editor -- that faceless, formless orb that tells you you're not good enough -- and just write. That's all well and good, but I like to write something I'm proud of , or at least, not mortified by, so I kind of like having that inner editor around just a little.

So how am I doing this then? Exactly what I said, by ignoring the clock. And the boards.(Even the nanoisms thread, which is hilarious but buys into the myth that NaNoWriMo writing is bad by definition.) And just write without trying to "win" at it.


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