So, since I've nothing else to do, I'm trying to decide whether to take on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) again this year. Last year, I got 15,000 or so words into a middle-grade historical fiction novel before houseguests descended and my goal of writing 1800 words a day disintigrated. Life just keeps happening.
If you don't know about NaNo, it's a crazy plot to get people writing. The goal is to write a 50,000 word book in just 30 days-- the month of November. Thousands of people sign up at the website, National Novel Writing Month, and write madly until they either finish, or life intervenes. A surprising number of people-- thousands, it seems-- finish each year, and can celebrate madly. Last year was my first try, and it was fun and addictive!
This year, if I decide to do it, I might work on my non-fiction book, Doing College Your Way. It's been incubating for several years, and I've actually used portions of it as a text in the "Get Credit for What you Know" seminars I teach. There's just a lot more I want to add, and at 1800 words a day, it would certainly progress quickly. On the other hand, it is National NOVEL Writing Month. Perhaps I should finish the book I started last year. It was coming along fairly nicely, and I'd love to see how it resolves. And then there's that mystery I've been toying with for years. And the middle-grade biographies...
That's the other thing you need to know about NaNo-- you don't have to have a plot, or even consider yourself a good writer in order to participate. No one is going to check your manuscript for run-on sentences, illogical plot twists, or misspelled words (though there is no excuse for misspellings when we all have spell-check keeping us in line! Though there's no spell-check when blogging, so don't expect perfection;-).). All you have to do to prove you've written your 50,000 words is to e-mail your file to headquarters, where a computer will automatically verify your word count. After that, it's up to you to edit out all the stuff you added to pad your word count on the more challlenging days!
The founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, has written a helpful book to get you started. It's called No Plot, No Problem
A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. He's done the 30-day novel thing often enough that he has a lot of great advice on how to get it done, including week-by-week tips on how you'll feel as you frantically type your way through the month. It's tremendously encouraging, and it helps to know that after you slog your way through the most difficult week, there's relatively smooth sailing ahead. Chapter titles are almost as much fun as the process-- I mean, who doesn't need "Time-Finding, News-Breaking, and a Step-by-Step Guide to Transforming Loved Ones into Effective Agents of Guilt and Terror"? Seriously, NaNo is a wonderful tool, not only for amateurs who need writing practice, but also for stuck writers who need help breaking through a creative block. Just as it's nearly impossible to have 'quality time' without having spent a significant amount of 'quantity time,' it's pretty much impossible to write well without having written a lot.
(I'd remove the qualifiers if I weren't wedded to the use of weasel words by the annoying people who feel compelled to search out the one, teeny-tiny remote example of the person who never wrote anything in his life, but suddenly produced a blockbuster novel out of the blue. The fact remains that quality time springs from quantity time, and writing well is the result of writing often.)
As you don't have to show your work to anyone, NaNo helps you get past the perfectionist mindset, and makes production the point of the exercise. It has been said that perfection is the enemy of the good, and that's true. Writing is a process that contains five steps--
Reading/Research
Thinking on Paper (aka brainstorming)
Organizing Ideas
Writing
Revising
I don't care if you're writing fiction or non-fiction-- each of the five steps is essential. A fiction work will most likely take less reading and reasearch than a non-fiction work, but not necessarily. Historical fiction, for example, must be accurate if you want to maintain credibility with your readers.
Where NaNo comes in, though, is in the writing stage. You'll notice that in the five stages, writing precedes revision. That's right-- you have to write before you can polish and perfect your work. So why do so many people feel they have to begin by writing perfect prose? It's not possible, and that is why there is a fifth step. While the perfectionist is sitting over a blank sheet of paper waiting for a perfectly formed opening sentence to spring to mind, the writer is on chapter three and typing as if there were no tomorrow. Sure, he's going to have to go back and tidy up his prose. By the time the perfectionist has wadded up his 29th sheet of paper (please... such a self-dramatizing gesture-- don't bother) and tossed it into the wastebasket, the writer has hundred of words written, and something to work with. He'll probably revise parts of his book a dozen times before it's complete, but he'll always be ahead of the poor schlump who sits there waiting for perfection.
So... I want to do NaNo again-- got to go look at my calendar! How about you?
(Remember to order No Plot, No Problem
for encouragement as you write!
