NaNoWriMo

This past week I was published, after a fashion. I didn’t get a plush contract for a novel, and I can’t even describe the work as a true academic publication - I wrote an article on securities fraud for a South Carolina Bar publication that is no longer published in hard copy. It’s written in lay-terms and has no footnotes or endnotes, so we’re not talking law review quality here, but its publication, and that’s something. I enjoy writing. Obviously. You don’t run across too many bloggers who loathe it. But the blog and most of my other writing, including this recent published piece, stems from an unrealized dream of being a professional writer.

Let me be clear: I have no desire to change careers to be paid by the line as a reporter or columnist. I have no aspirations to sweat it out year after year and pay my dues by selling short stories and novellas to literary magazines for pennies until my big break rolls in. I have dreams of being a total sellout, making obscene amounts of money from writing oft-criticized but popular fiction. Of telling a damn good story, and getting paid.

Alas, the latter is unlikely without the former. Or finding a genie.

Even paying my dues in some form or fashion is a little difficult unless I can finish writing something longer than a blog post (my recently published article is roughly the same length as what you read here). I know many people who have this problem – they desire to write a story or novel, whether with shallow, profit-minded goals like mine or simply for their own pleasure, but they can’t seem to get a story finished, or in some cases even start one.

To that end, let me tell you about the madness that is NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org). Nanowrimo (I’m dropping the official capitalizations for simplicity), or National Novel Writing Month (see how clever that is!), officially takes place in November of each year, though a few of the harder-core would-be and definitely-are writers take part in Nanowrimo Camp... which is really just an extra month of Nanowrimo. Because one month of this mental torment isn’t sadistic enough.

The point of Nanowrimo is to write a novel in one month. That’s pretty much it - 30 days to write 50,000 words. It’s incredibly simple. Not to be confused with easy. In practice, 50K words is a doable goal for 30 days, even with a full time job and other obligations, but you’ve got to really work it. It’s hard. I know. I’ve tried twice, and failed twice, but both times I’ve enjoyed the experience and I’ve gotten pretty good starts (25-35K words ain’t bad) on stories I may one day finish, for myself if for no one else.

You may note that, even if you succeed, 50K words would make a pretty short novel. And most people criticize the concept by wondering aloud how good a quality book one could write in a 30 day span. To this latter point I counter, how long do you really think James Patterson spent on the ten books he put out in the last twelve months?

Just kidding Mr. Patterson - you’re doing fine work just like you always have.

But really, the point of Nanowrimo is not to get published or create a great work of literature. If you do manage to create something others can enjoy, that’s great, fantastic, bonus with gravy on the side. But the point is simply to write a novel. Why is this a big deal? Because everyone I’ve met who was remotely literate (in the sense that they read for pleasure with some degree of regularity, not in the sense that they don’t need the picture menu at Denny’s) thinks they have a novel in them somewhere, and they’ll get around to writing it “one day.” Nanowrimo forces you to start your “one day.” And it gives you thirty of them to accomplish something. Even if it’s not great, or even readable, at least you’ve done it.

To follow the technical guidelines of Nanowrimo (yeah, there are guidelines - see the official site for all of them) you have to start a fresh novel. No cheating by working on previously written manuscripts or coming in with the first five chapters penned. Outlines are acceptable (officially - some people get really uppity about this stuff) but beyond that you bring in material at your peril. And that’s it, really. Write an extended work of fiction (that’s how they define “novel”) of at least 50K words before November 30.

Why am I writing about Nanowrimo? Because I do want to finish a novel one day, rather than have a small collection of unfinished ones that haunt me until I’m an incontinent old man quoting Monty Python to my great grandchildren as they put me in a home for talentless wannabes who never finished a novel. What I’ve produced out of Nanowrimo is as close as I’ve ever come and I suspect if I ever finish one it will be at least in part thanks to the concept behind Nanowrimo, summed up best as “just get off your ass and do it already.” Also I comment on Nanowrimo somewhat wistfully, as I can say with a high degree of certainty that I will not be participating this year. Somehow I doubt that the “I’m writing dear, can you bathe the baby yourself” thing is really going to fly in my house this fall. But, since I have many friends that will be participating, I will be writing vicariously through them.

The reasons that I have never finished a Nanowrimo novel, or anything else other than the odd short story are things I will one day have to overcome. First, there’s the lack of planning. If I write anything longer than a blog post it’s usually because I have a great idea for a scene or two, but no coherent story or clear cut characters. These elements are not critical for Nanowrimo necessarily, but the lack of these elements directly impacts my second big hurdle - my internal editor. I mean “editor” more in the sense of a censor or extremely zealous critic than the constructive “here’s where you could fine tune it” meaning of the word. I could honestly use a better “editor” in the constructive sense - my writing is replete with easily correctable mistakes. Have you noticed my atrocious abuse of the apostrophe throughout this blog?. But mostly I just live with those because this is just a blog. As in, a hobby. If you want to pay me for this, I’ll be happy to spend the time necessary to properly edit and fine tune. But, alas, for now I work pro bono. Back to my point - I am my own worst critic. I doubt a review of my work could say something negative about my writing I haven’t already thought myself. Inevitably, the writing cycle goes something like this: get idea, write idea, flesh out idea, love what’s written, flesh out further and add material, hate new material, burn the entire project to the ground and urinate on the ashes. Repeat as necessary. This makes reaching a goal of 50K words somewhat more difficult.

The thing is, I’m better than halfway to 50K words on this blog. Yeah, it’s taken me more than 30 days to get where I am, and by 50K it will be more still, but I’m writing about nothing, and still managing to pump out some ridiculous word counts (sorry for that, by the way, but no one makes you read all this). If I actually have something to write about, it seems like it would be easier, not harder. Alas, rambling about disparate subjects is much easier for the unorganized mind.

Anyway, if you’re participating this year, I wish you the best of luck. If you are not, but you hope to one day write a novel, consider Nanowrimo. I mean, I’ll have a new infant this November - what’s your excuse?