I may actually do it this year.
For all those NaNo naysayers, well. I wrote my first novel thanks to NaNo. Was it a piece of self indulgent wanky shit? Oh yes. But I honestly don't know if I would have progressed to the writing I am doing now without it. If you're doing NaNo get rid of any notions that you will have a publishable product at the end. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that publishing isn't what NaNo is about. It's about giving you a starting point, getting you past whatever bullshit baggage you're carrying around about how you really have nothing worthy to say. Use it in that spirit.
Once my writing progressed to a certain point, I quit doing NaNo as such. Creating a first draft at a frenzied pace, with no thought as to quality, no longer served me quite the same way. Now though I think I might give it another try, and see if I can combine a more thoughtful pace with the goals of NaNo.
I am unemployed. I have nothing but time. Let's do this.
This will be my first NaNo attempt. I can't quite come to terms with the idea that I'll just sit down and knock out words without concern for quality, but I'm okay with the idea that I might only come in at 30k really good words. I'm not so focused on getting the first draft done for the sake of getting it done. That's entirely valid, but I've written enough books in my learning process that I don't need to prove to myself that I can finish one. I do, however, need a kick-start, and the NaNo deadline might just do the trick. Good luck to both of us.
ReplyDeleteYeah that is exactly how I feel about it! Would you like to be writing buddies on the NaNo boards? My handle there is tiger_gray.
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