NaNoWriMo and Me 1: 3 Pros and 3 Cons

What is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is a shortening of the words National Novel Writing Month. In case you haven't heard of it, National Novel Writing Month takes place in November. During this time, writers from all over the world (Shouldn't it be International Novel Writing Month then? Yes, probably) focus their efforts together on separately writing novels.


The objective is to start from the first word of a novel, having nothing written of it beyond plans before the month starts, and end with a hopefully completed project, but at least 50.000 words.


There aren't really any prizes or fame or glory offered to the winners, but it is a tool for getting writers to write and it provides support networks to encourage said writers and spur them forward.


I've participated in NaNoWriMo the last 10 years (and will probably talk more about my history with it in future posts). Each year, I've reached the 50,000 words. Once I even doubled the goal. The actual quality of what I've written has been...mixed at best.


Over the years, I've developed a lot of mixed feelings about NaNoWriMo based on my experiences and the experiences of those around me.

Pros

1. Motivation

A lot of people want to write a novel. A lot of people might even spend some time working on such a thing. But a lot of time the motivation fizzles out. Life gets in the way. The novel gets set to the side with the promise of "well, I'll get to it tomorrow." The tomorrows pile up, and things go unfinished.


NaNoWriMo provides a solid goal and a deadline. It's trackable. It's focused. It has an element of rigor, while still being mostly in the realm of the achievable. Things like that help writers to stay focused. It helps people to take their free time and say "okay, I'm going to write a few hundred more words" rather than "I'm tired, I'll write more tomorrow."


I know that this is the case for me. I definitely let my writing go to the wayside when I don't have clear goals and timeframes laid out in front of me. But with NaNo, I'm able to focus and keep myself motivated, even if the reasoning behind the timeline and goal are pretty arbitrary.

2. New Ideas

NaNo is fast paced. The more that one has going on in their life, the faster one has to write in the time available. Because of this need for speed, I often find myself writing down the first event or idea that comes to mind when I'm going from point A to point B on my outline. Sometimes, what comes out is horrible. I'll get to that in the Cons section.


Sometimes, what comes out looks like sheer brilliance. Looking back over my work, there have been many times that I've thought to myself "I have no idea where that idea came from, but it's great." Ideas that I never would have thought of in a calm place with no deadline that bring things to light that I hadn't considered before flow out during some of the faster jaunts in NaNo.


I think that we have this tendency to overthink things, especially when there's no time crunch. I know that I have this filter that just hits an idea and a lot of times, without even really thinking about it goes "oh, that's stupid" and I write off the idea without giving it a level of consideration. The speed of NaNo helps me to get past my overthinking and past my filter so that I actually get ideas on the page and can see if they work or not.

3. Learning

Not every idea that comes across one's mind is a good idea. A lot of them are bad. And writing super fast, many of them will be. But, NaNoWriMo allows writers to experience both good ideas and bad ideas. It allows writers to take what they've done, evaluate that work, and learn from it.


Over the years, I've learned a lot about myself as a writer. I know more about what I do well and what I do poorly. I know more about what I like to write and what I don't. And these things are all things I can use to further my future projects.


Kit Bradley, an author friend of mine (who I met through my local NaNoWriMo region) told me not long ago about the idea of the "Thousand Pounds of Clay". Basically, as Kit explained it, there was a pottery instructor who had two classes. One he told he would grade based on their best pot. The other he told he would grade based on how much they produced-how close they got to a thousand pounds of clay. At the end of the semester, the class that tried to do a thousand pounds of clay had the better pots, because they had more experience. They had tried more things. They had failed more, and they had learned more from those failures. They had succeeded more, and they build off of those successes. NaNoWriMo provides the same opportunity, for those who want to take it.

Cons

1. Writing to Write

I've encountered different philosophies of participants of NaNo, and I'm not one to say that any are better or worse than any others. However, I think that philosophies can be contagious, and I've seen people given advice that I would claim is "bad" depending on their goals.


Specifically, I've noticed that there are participants who don't really care what they're writing. They don't really think seriously about or intend to get published or share their writing with anyone. They want to beat nano, but they don't seem to care a lot about the thing they're doing. They are writing to write. These writers will focus on word count above any other idea of writing, and will emphasize that others do the same.


While I'm fine with these people writing to write if that's what they want to do, I've seen the philosophy really mess up people who actually do care about what they're writing and want it to turn out well.

2. Quantity over Quality

This is the natural result of the above philosophy, but some people fall victim to it even if they aren't trying to have the above frame of mind. Now, I did say that speed and trying to reach a goal of a high word count in a short period of time is good. It is. To a point.


I've seen people pushing for word count putting through idea after idea as they come and hit upon a realization, partway through their story, that something that they have written is horrendous. It's something awful that throws off the entire story beyond that point. At this point, the writer has a choice. They can go back and try to work through the event they wrote, adjust it, change it, come up with an alternative, and therefore fix the story. They can try to think about what they'd do to fix it, write as if they did, and go back to fix it later. Or, they can keep going with what they've written, moving forward with a bad foundation.


More often than not in NaNo, I've seen people, caring more about word count than their story, chose the latter. At the end of the month, a lot of the time, these people realize that everything after the bad-point is awful-unsalvageable. They know that they'll have to go back to that point and rewrite most everything from there. They usually don't end up doing that.


A lot of times, this happens to people who would like their story to work, who would like to go back and fix things, but who have been told "No, keep going, don't go back, it'll slow down your word count goals."


These people can, and a lot of times do, learn from the experience. Whatever they did wrong, they learn how to better avoid it in the future, even if they don't learn to go back and fix things. So, it's not a wasted experience, but it's not as developmental an experience as it could be.


More often then not, in an ironic turn, the people who focus on words over story tend to get burnt out or get to places where they don't know what to write next. This prevents them from reaching the word count, leaving them unsatisfied with their efforts.

3. Lack of Follow Through

While November has set goals and objectives and timelines, once November ends, things are less organized. Everyone always commits to finishing their work. If there's still more to be written, people say that they they'll finish writing it. Everyone says they'll finish editing the writing. Groups say that they'll continue to meet and focus on getting things done.


In my experience, this happens rarely. There's a severe lack of follow through, and the efforts of the month end up falling by the wayside.


For a better idea of what I've written for NaNoWriMo over the last 10 years, and what I've gained from it, check out My NaNoWriMo History