Why NaNoWriMo? Why 2015?
This is far different from my usual modus operandi.
My trap is cleverly disguised laziness. Can I put effort in to something I might be sick of? Usually I let myself off the hook by rationalizing it’s not worthy it sucks. The reality is it doesn’t suck — It does if I compare it to the greatest thing ever done in the history of literature or mankind more generally. It certainly sucks right now in the crudest of of crude incomplete drafts I never bothered to read — even read once. I imagine that it might be decent but still not up to snuff compared the top 10 in literary history. So why would I bother, why would anyone bother? I’m sick of this story already.
Watch now as I perform a rationalization back-flip with full twist. I posses unimaginable skill, a true master at work. With the effortless grace only countless hours of practice could produce; “If it could be one of the best 10 things ever written, so good that nobody else will even bother writing anything again, then I wouldn’t be sick of it already”. See how that works?
As a bonus I get to say to myself “yeah, it could of probably been decent worst case” . Too easy, let me work on something else that might be good enough to knock the top ten so far back into the weeds there won’t be any question. Yea, that’s what I’ll do instead of working on the possibly above par potential thing I’ve got laying here half-baked and unedited.
NaNoWriMo will hold me to account with some vague degree of external measure. That’s scary. I really can’t bugger off on a whim. I could but I won’t. It also gives me a deadline — a short one to be done with all the rabbit holes I slither down. No time for irrelevant research procrastination via self-delusion of working by not doing the writing work part. The idiotic impossible choice between John or Jack as a first name for a minor character. The perfection of a speech pattern prior to writing a single line of dialog spoken by a tertiary character that appears in one stinking scene.
There are other rationalization gymnastics I perform when it comes to writing. Over planning, hemming myself in having everything so tight and mapped out at a high level with so much investment there’s no room to breathe forcing me down the path I really don’t want once I actually start the work. Sticking to that plan, that plot so doggedly I may as well re-write the whole thing when I’m done. It’s not the story I really wanted in the first place, it’s a story I mapped out without doing any real writing work. I gave it no room of it’s own and it feels hollow. Why bother with the few great scenes I accidently spewed out in that strait jacket? Those scenes need to be cut if I look at them in the context of “this story”. Those scenes belong in a completely different story — the one I really wanted. I guess I’ll salvage those for some future effort — the rest of it is trash. See how I didn’t do any work on the story I wanted, I kicked it down the road. I did a modicum of half-hearted effort on what I laid out but relegated the good stuff to “not the story” I was working on. Years of practice to get this smooth. I’m telling you — you can learn a lot of advanced techniques here for not writing while feeling like you are.
With November looming large I’ll have no time to hem myself in with overplanning, no time to veer off on tangents that are shiny distractions from the real work of writing. A win that’s measured in cold hard word count. That’s no assurance the words are good but that’s where I fall down, doing the writing. The slogging though parts I know are going to need a lot of work after the initial work. I look at that part as unnessesary an inefficiency to be rid of or optimized out. Truth: none of us can get to all the right words if you aren’t willing to lay down a hell of a lot of wrong ones. The rest of it in terms of ideas, questions, answers, what-if’s, research, continuity, I’m great at that. Guess what — none of it counts when it comes to writing if the writing doesn’t get done. None of it counts in NaNoWriMo. No rationalization talents will get me to a win.
If you’re a canny enough rationalization athlete you may see how some of the techniques I illustrated fit together elegantly. Excusing oneself from the gory parts while rewarding the move to something newer, better, and more exciting. This is why I will participate in NaNoWriMo November 1, 2015. As a commitment to myself casting off my well honed techniques of not doing the writing part of writing. I’m certain something will get written that holds my interest for the month. That “something” may evolve, and morph, and twist while in flight. That’s okay, I need a large dose in a not too too short duration of exactly what NaNoWriMo prescribes. A challenge suited to thwart the degree of mastery I have at feeling like I’m working without doing the work.
