This year’s National Novel Writing Month challenge is nomo at this camp. I could not justify it as a daily grind, because like many writers who are either freelance like me, or who have Real Jobs, the days are spoken for. Last year was my first NaNoWriMo quest. It was fun to sit down for about two hours a night (once dinner was successfully burning) and crank out the words. This year was different, and last night, I quit. I ditched the widget!
Today after putting together a proposal for a nonfiction article, I thought about why. I’m pretty energetic when it comes to getting the job done, so what happened?
Here I am after work today, hugging a baby ceder tree that I netted to protect from the browsing deer.
I could blame the election, which was exhausting (and exciting). But to be honest, it just wasn’t coming together. I really didn’t want to spend every night working on a manuscript that would wind up in a drawer. Others take NoNoWriMo as a disciplinary process to get them to WRITE. But I write all the time. At least for now, when I spend that kind of energy on a project, I want the words to count – not in word-count – but because they count as a story worth reading. Yah, it’s just a first draft, that’s true – but a really bad first draft is not easy to fix. So for me, this year’s challenge is off the agenda.
I’ll still work to market the series (so far only one rejection!), and am happy that at least, I have one solid finished manuscript and did get a good start on #2 and an outline for #3 via NaNoWriMo. But for now, dinner won’t burn, and I’ll do things in the evening like catch up on reading blogs and see what’s cooking on eBay.
2 years ago, I began the Nano project, sorta determined to produce my 50,000 words. This was another version of a novel I began 25 years ago, but broke down after revising the first 3 chapters a zillion times (resulting in 3 first chapters cast in concrete). I figured I was starting anew, so I was nanoing legally: New viewpoint character, completely different beginning–only the setting would be the same although seen through different eyes of a younger character. I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking because I’d wrecked my shoulder halfway through 2009′s Nano. I started using nano-type sentence expansion with 2 or 3x words than were needed for meaning. BUT after the first couple chapters, the MC balked. I may be wordy in spoken and digital(?) conversation, but that novel hates the wordy language techniques. So I quit.
By: Mary Whittington on November 12, 2012
at 8:04 pm
Very nice and at least, you aren’t pressuring yourself.
By: Denise lynch on November 10, 2012
at 11:11 am
I’m with you. 1. I have other stuff to do, especially in November (stupid leaves!) 2. I already have the discipline to get the writing done, and 3. I’m one of those polish-as-you-go types who hate fixing sucky first drafts. I think Nano is awesome for folks who need the push and the camaraderie, but it ain’t for me. In my opinion, the first key to being a successful writer is learning what works for you. The second is not letting anyone talk you out of your personal writing process with their “shoulds.”
By: Lisa Nowak on November 9, 2012
at 10:18 pm
I don’t think I have a process, and I don’t rake leaves at night, but it could be the recent *real* deadlines that helped make me decide to not let this voluntary effort become a tiresome grind.
By: Robin Koontz on November 10, 2012
at 1:45 pm