NaNoWriMo Reconsidered
I posted this on my Goodreads page last year. As NaNoWriMo begins again this year, I took a look back at it. Pretty much still how I feel…
I used to hate NaNoWriMo. The idea of anyone writing a novel in one month seemed antithetical to any semblance of good writing. I thought word counts were prioritized over literary quality, and was insulted that spewing words onto a page in a semi-lucid fashion passed for writing. And the NaNo tagline is “The World Needs Your Novel,” which it most certainly does not — if that’s why you’re writing, you’re doing it wrong.
In a way I was right. I still think you can’t write a good novel in a month, and I’m still irked by the rabid NaNo talk of word counts, which is pretty insignificant when it comes to actual good writing. Also, the world still doesn’t need your novel.
However, I’ve come to see far more positives in NaNo than I did when I first learned about it a few years ago. I’m not sure I’m exactly on-board with it, and I don’t intend to try it myself, but I think the people in the literary fiction crowd, us “serious writers,” need to take a step back and stop totally hating on it.
Here are some tangible positives NaNoWriMo participants can get out of such a project.
- Good writing habits. Everyone says how important it is to write every day. Well, that’s pretty much what you do in NaNo. Of course, it’s a little silly to hold yourself to such a rigid daily word count, but as long as people don’t do that after NaNo, and recognize that sometimes a 300 word day is good work, the habit is the right thing to develop.
- Fresh ideas. When writers stop planning their novels and start writing them, a lot of times they go in unexpected directions. With NaNoWriMo, there’s little if any planning that goes into it, and so I’d guess lots of quality story elements that come about organically. In one month it’s impossible to properly integrate them, but if people recognize that and look back at what they did for the ideas and not the finished product, then NaNo can be a nice way to forge ideas for a more long term novel project.
- Community. Some things on the NaNo discussion forums are ridiculous. Fine, most things. But they do show the importance of a writing community and getting feedback from others. That’s pretty important in this whole writing game, it’s why every university class embraces the workshop model.
- It seems like people have fun. God forbid we should ever enjoy writing. I mean, I don’t. I’m a firm believer that I write because not writing is worse. I don’t think any writing project of any sort will ever change that for me. But, based on Twitter and Facebook posts, people seem to really love NaNo, and look forward to it, and that doesn’t really hurt us brooding writers. So, fuck it, good for them.
All of this only holds, in my mind, if NaNoWriMo participants keep the thing firmly in perspective. It’s a month. It’s an artificial time frame. The product will not be good, and in order to make it good one will probably have to spend years revising and rewriting — that part of the process cannot get skipped (and, as a corollary, will probably make any NaNo “winner” just as miserable as the rest of us).
And, again, remember that the world doesn’t need any of this.
But, with that perspective, NaNoWriMo really isn’t so bad for the writing world. At least, I don’t think so.
