That thought is appalling to me, and disrespectful to writers who slave over their craft and to agents who sift through manuscripts for a living. That my first post had spelling errors I missed is embarrassing, much less sending my unpolished draft to a professional for consideration. Maybe people are stupider than I gave them credit for. I still love NaNoWriMo, but my faith in the human race may have dropped a bit.

This is such a good way to that. “I can’t write a novel, I am not a writer.” And why not? True, you may never be a well-paid professional writer, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with non-writers putting 50,000 words of crap on paper just to be creative. And even moreso, to do it with tons of other people who are acting as insane as you are. It is good, clean fun.

Surely people are not stupid enough to think that just because they spit out 50,000 words of nonsense they are now publication-worthy? I sure don’t.

I did however, find that I am capable of writing fiction, which I had no idea about. It actaully sparked a passion in me I have never felt before. I cannot stop thinking about my story, or my characters. I want to tell thier story. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up – I think I might want to be a writer.

I may sound cliche, but for me it was life-changing. My husband had commented every few days how exciting it is to see me excited and passionate about something. He loves his job, and I never imagined I would love a job either.

I may have just completely underminded my own point about random people writing 50,000 words of crap and then thinking they are writers, seeing as how I decided in 30 days that I was going to be a writer. I would love for it to be with my NaNo Novel – I think, although rough, it really is a great story. And my inner editor did get to come out a play a little, and I won anyway.

My novel is not complete, but it is well on its way. I am a sucker for a competition, which is why I tried it anyway. Not to get published, just to see if I could do it. The drive to write is just a crazy, wonderful perk. Even if I never get published I would love to earmark Novemeber to let my inner artist play without fear of rejection.

I may not have impressed anyone, and if not, I am sorry I wasted your time, but this was a great experience for me.

Check out Mur Lafferty’s NaNo reality check. Worth a look. Good advice, grounded in reality.

http://isbw.murlafferty.com/2009/11/05/nanowrimo-reality-check/

– c.

A few of my own thoughts:

As a professional writer, I don’t like the contest mentality. Writing, for me, is not a contest. I eat my words – literally. If I’m going to commit to a month of writing nonstop, I want it to be quality – not quantity. That means slower progress on a manuscript that is much more polished than drivel I could do just to make a word count.

Second, it amazes me that anyone who criticizes NaNo or who just doesn’t want to participate for whatever reason gets hammered by a writing elite that seems to think participation makes you a REAL writer. This, to me, at least, is weird.

Third, it is in a terrible month – for me, at least. If I’m working on an MS, November would be a month I’d take off simply because of exhaustive work commitments. I’ve learned the hard way not to overextend myself too much. Otherwise everything I do is crap. Someone mentioned in another forum that NaNo is to teach you how to write even while you are busy, but that doesn’t quite work for me. Why add something else to my plate so I can fail at several things because I’m too busy than humanly possible?

NaNo is a terrific idea that could help some authors – especially those who are just starting out. A few published authors are doing it this year – which really shocks me. But hey, if it works for them, awesome.

Thanks for the post!

– c.

Then, about 8 years ago, an editor friend of mine asked me to write a book for his company. I was flattered. I left my masters program to work on it. I came up with a fantastic premise, was completely inspired and dedicated and gave it all I knew how to at the time. It was an invaluable experience for me because it taught me that despite lots of feedback to the contrary throughout school, I really knew jack about writing – and – I discovered I really wanted to change that.

So, after a few years of health issues demanding all of my time and focus, I set my sight on the craft of writing. I started learning to “see” things in writing I’d heard people talk about but never could understand let alone identify in my work or that of others. I have been energized all this time by the admittedly s-l-o-w progress I’ve noticed in my proficiency, comfort and discernment in working with words.

Now, I feel like I have been “in training.” Yes, mostly for the satisfaction of seeing myself develop a skill I have learned tremendous respect for. And, to prepare for successful professional work that makes good use of this skill. But then hearing about NaNoWriMo, I thought “Why Not?”. Similar to the time I signed up for a 10k through my fitness center – something I never saw my self doing, as i mentioned before. And, yeah, I walked the whole dang thing at a ridiculously leisurely pace – still felt great. It was a walk for MS along a beautiful stretch of central California coast – and I felt good about all of that. If I had to call for a ride part way through, or if it took me till dusk to make it to the finish line – didn’t matter.

Now, NaNoWriMo. Is it silly to devote so much time to writing a bunch of crap… I’ve devoted much more than a month to writing crap all with the belief that it was part of learning to write NOT crap. I may, I now believe, even work my way up to being a solidly GOOD writer someday (hence the name of my site/blog/project). This goal is a far cry from “creating one of the greatest literary works, ever on my first go, just based on talent flowing out of me.” I really thought that way. No pressure, no anxiety, no “expectation”…

So, anyway, yes, I set goals for myself. I actually self-designed my entire undergraduate education which taught me more than anything to take responsibility in self-directing my life endeavors. Seems that’s called “lifestyle design” these days. Still, this time around, I’m directing myself to participate in NanNoWriMo. It’s not for MS this time, but I do intend to use my writing to promote ‘good things.’ And yes, it is a big event set up by some ‘random’ organization complete with arbitrary starting and stoping points, with rules inbetween, but, much like my 10k, I sill plan to show up at the NaNoWriMo starting line and head towards the finish. I’m sure I’ll learn from the experience – even if only to never do another nanowrimo ever, ever again!

Just being Devil’s Advocate for the Devil’s Advocate.

~ Selene