| Apr. 23rd, 2005 @ 02:58 pm Opinionated thoughts about NaNoWriMo (yes, I know it's April right now) |
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Disposition::  creative
I remember, back in November, there was this person who said that NaNoWriMo was bad. That is, that it was something that would hold you back from real writing. I can see that, somewhat, now that I've been through it. However, I think it depends on how you look at it.
For example, let's take me and what I did. For me, it was a complete waste of time. And yet, it was a very valuable waste of time, and I'll likely do it again next year. Of course, I plan on breaking the rules. I plan to keep working on that one. Why? Well, when I started, I knew that this is sort of a side project. And, to be honest, a bad novel. Or, if I want to be more generous, not a novel I was intending to write, but one I wrote for the sheer fun of it. And then, if something magical happened and it turned into something good, go with it!
And in one sense, it wasn't a waste of time. I have this idea for a very grand project. Grand, because of the sheer amount of world-building I have to do. It involves two continents and six countries, and several thousand years of history. Old languages, new languages, old languages' influence still seen (verbs like "to be", names of old places, etc). And let's not get into magic and technology, shopping, coins, how they tell time, what the soil's like, what sorts of plants they know of, eat, etc. And, although I have a problem and a solution, I don't have a story, yet.
Well, so my NaNo was to be a novel in which I figured out some of the world-building stuff for one point in time, for the continent that only has one country. And so, the story really wasn't important at all. Isn't important. It was just fun. And yes, I did learn a few things about my world (though not as much as I had hoped).
I had intended to keep writing it after November, and here's where I think the anti-NaNo writer has a point. As you, my readers, know, I have not kept writing it. November ended, and with that, so too ended the feeling of obligation to keep going. For me, it's not a problem, because I have no stake in that novel. But what if I had begun with the hopes of writing something I did have a stake in? Like the one of the grand plan? (Terrible sentence). I have a feeling that the same sense of "It's over (for good or ill)" would have come over me, and I wouldn't have gotten any further.
And so, here comes my opinionatedness (Yes, that's a word. I just created it. *sticks out tongue*). I think the trick to NaNoWriMo is to use and abuse it for one's own ends. Don't let it corner you into thinking what you're doing is serious. It's not - and the organizers are very clear on that, too. But it's so not serious that you shouldn't pay attention to the rules. If it sounds like I'm telling you you should cheat, you're right. I don't advocate copying and pasting a word 50,000 times. That's dumb and pointless. Similarly, I don't think you should take something you've already written that is 40,000 words and simply add 10,000 and think you've "won". That's equally pointless. My NaNoWriMo, at last count, was around 25,000 words. Next November, I do plan to continue that novel (because, to be blunt, it's the only time I can stand to work on it - right now, I want to do serious writing), but I'm simply not going to count the words that are already written. This is considered cheating, but I don't care. I do want to finish the story, but during the non NaNo months, I don't want to work on that, when I have this other, much more important novel (to me), on my mind. I'm hoping, though I rather doubt I'll manage it (and I haven't, yet) to have 11 months of 10,000 words on serious works, and then go nuts with NaNoWriMo on a non-serious work. I think this will be very productive to me. Obviously, I can't count December - April, but if I plan to write, say 500 words a day (with a few lapses), instead of desperately trying to get out 2,000, maybe it will be easier. And then, in 11 months, I'd have 110,000 words. Not bad, really.
But why should I give up my other fun story, just because I'm supposed to start something new in November? That's dumb. I should be able to choose whatever I want to write.
Okay. I'm done being opinionated. I'm going to go write. |
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