Nanowrimo…
Nanowrimo Definition: National Novel Writing Month, a writing exercise wherein a person writes a 50,000 word novel over the course of the month of November.
Admittedly I was planning to write about this at the beginning of the month, but life got in the way…
At the end of October I was starting to see videos about how Nanowrimo has gone downhill in the last couple of years. For something that is supposed to be a a writing exercise, it’s almost a wonder as to how it could turn ‘political’ except it’s actually not. I completed my first Nanowrimo in 2007. I handwrote it in a leather bond journal and when I went to register my word count on the official site I had to fudge it by compiling various school projects together to get a 50,000 word count document. For my effort I was given a printable certificate and a overpriced notebook filled with unusable word vomit. Over the next two months I wrote my first real novella, aka the first book I put real effort into and edited. It will never see the light of day.
I very early on recognized that Nanowrimo was a fantastic writing exercise. I finished it three years in a row while in high school and attempted a few times in college. Each time I would discard the Nano story and end up writing a more substantial story in the ensuing months. Why? because Nanowrimo is fantastic for creating writing habits when one has lapsed, but awful for meaningful writing. It’s just the nature of the beast. In college I noticed several books being published that owed their existence to Nanowrimo and honestly they weren’t good. Word vomit writing, which is what Nanowrimo turns into, needs a lot of editing to be of any value and that editing is just not happening. (Remind me to someday write about my thoughts on editors, but I digress.) Even for the Nanowrimo’s I have taken ideas from, such as To Private Ford Rayburn, I have left that draft almost entirely on the cutting room floor. What I wrote last year is almost unrecognizable to the final draft I’m currently editing.
So why am I not surprised by the politics? Because back in 2007 it was already strangely political. The fact that I was pseudo gatekept from participating because I wrote my novel by hand hinted at a very strange elitism on the part of those running the site. Is this supposed to be a community getting together to encourage each other to write more and make good habits? Or is it an organization designed to churn out crap novels for the dying publishing industry to make a buck off of gullible dreamers? Even in 2007 the latter was true. I don’t trust any writer who uses Nanowrimo to write because it’s designed to be a writing exercise, not a way to write your next book. A good writer will understand this. And in truth we all need that shot in the arm sometimes to get us back into the swing of things. So while I am very fond of Nanowrimo, it needs to go back to being a writing exercise with no other pretenses.