NaNoWriMo

[yiran]

...No, it didn't go THAT early this year.

I'm still talking about the competition, of course, but I don't get why everyone is so keen on it. Sure, you do get a reward, and there's a sense of self accomplishment, but let's face it – none of us are professional writers, and we still have our daily lives to attend to in November. Therefore, we don't have much free time in November. And that leads to rushing your work.

And that's terrible. I consider myself an above-average writer (so I write pretty well), but when I rush my writing? Ew, it's terrible. I'd much rather write 10000 good fiction rather than 50000 words rushed fiction, because quality over quantity applies to literature. ...In my opinion.

So, I didn't really put a lot of thought into organising this post, so sorry if it's a bit messed up, but it's basically just asking a question: why do you value NaNoWriMo so much?

This forum desperately needs reviving.

 

[surskitty]

Getting stuff down's more important than getting good stuff down; you can always spend lots of time revising, and, more frequently, throwing out your first draft for the most part and rewriting with only the bits that're worth keeping. You're more likely to realise what bits of what you wrote were stupid and to fix them if you've already got them down; you're no longer worrying so much about what comes next.

 

[Stormecho]

I take forever to write something I might consider adequate, let alone well written. With NaNo, I actually make daily progress on something, which is wonderful and proves that I can churn out a story, even if it turns out to be shit. As well, I find that if I don't spend days or months planning ahead, the character and plot development becomes more messy, but also more organic and surprising. My last two attempts were actually decent and I plan on editing and continuing them.

Besides, NaNo is wildly fun, if exhausting. It's always a rush for me, especially in a dreary and work-heavy month like November.

 

[Phantom]

Plus there have been NaNo books that have gone the extra steps and been published. The competition is to help people get the initiativive to write, some people like competition.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

...No, it didn't go THAT early this year.

Bahaha I saw this thread and I was like, "wow, it really DOES start earlier every year..."

but let's face it – none of us are professional writers, and we still have our daily lives to attend to in November. Therefore, we don't have much free time in November.

To me, the point of NaNoWriMo is learning that this doesn't matter. You don't have to be a professional writer to write; you can still write a lot even with a normal life. So many people say, "I'd like to write a book, but I don't have the time; maybe over summer break, or maybe once I graduate school, or maybe once the kids leave the house, or maybe once I retire, etc. etc. etc." But it never happens, because we never have as much free time as we think we will. I get this all the time; I don't like telling myself, "I'll do this later when I have more time," because I know from personal experience that I'm never going to have the time I think I will.

The point of NaNoWriMo is getting something written, because a lot of us can fall victim to the, "I don't have time, I won't write now," trap, and never end up writing at all. Yes, it's going to be poor quality. But it's better than no quality! NaNo is about realizing that, yes, you too have time to write. That's why I value NaNoWriMo; it's for anyone who's ever wanted to write a book, not just the professional writers. In fact, I think I write more often when I have a busy schedule. If I give myself huge chunks of time for writing, I hardly write a word. xD;

If you have the motivation and willpower to get something written at a slower, higher quality pace, that's great! =) I know I don't always, so something like NaNo is a fun push to get those words and ideas flowing. Quality over quantity does matter, but only at the end when you're ready to publish or show it to people or whatever. It's up to you how you get there, whether you produce quality at a slower pace, or produce quantity at a fast pace and go back and revise for the quality later.

I used to think that the latter was a better fit for me, but, with my current story, I'm considering trying to iron out a quality beginning before I zip through the rest of it. I always ended up having to stop and fix the beginning anyway, since what happens in the beginning is so critical to the rest of my story. We'll see what happens, though; I know I'm going to feel incredibly accomplished once I get through the first third or so of the story.

That's what I think!

 

[Butterfree]

NaNoWriMo gets you to actually write the thing you might be kinda-sorta meaning to write at some point but never do. The whole point of it is that the competitive, we're-all-in-this-together aspect motivates you to work on getting your novel done, push on even when you have writer's block, continue even when you can't figure out how to word this scene properly at the moment, and thus to ultimately actually make progress with your writing. That the output will be a poor-quality first draft doesn't matter; when you're done, you can go and edit it with every bit the care that you'd normally take doing the actual writing.

How much it helps you depends on how you personally write, of course; if you don't generally have any problems with getting the actual writing done, then you don't need NaNoWriMo (but might still want to participate for the fun of it). And it works best when you have an idea of where the story is going from the start, so that you won't end up writing yourself into a corner and just having no idea how to continue. (The successful NaNos I've done were both spin-off backstories of characters I'd already created and knew approximately how they needed to develop, even if a lot of things didn't get fleshed out properly until I was writing.)

 

[Autumn]

I can write 1667 words in 45 minutes if I sit down and focus and I have like several hours of free time every day so it's not like I have issues with free time (though I know others do), but usually when I write I never finish because I keep getting distracted and have no motivation to keep writing. With NaNo I have an actual deadline and desire to finish the work. I feel like I've accomplished something.

 

[yiran]

Okay, thanks for everyone for responding to this. (I guess this forum isn't that dead, after all.)

Anyway, the reason I don't value NaNoWriMo as much as the rest of you is because I get writing done when I want it to. Not very quickly (~5000 words a month), but I still get it done, and at a quality I'm satisfied with. If you normally don't have the motive to write, then yeah, it is quite a good reason to get yourself writing.

And about writing yourself into a corner; that never, ever happens to me, because when I write something I always have something planned out. In fact, the most of the time I start writing something, it's been in my head for at least a month already. Seems like others don't, though, so that's something people might want to get in mind when writing.

Again, thanks for all the responses :D

(I'm kind of unnerved by the fact that everyone that responded here is so much older than me. DID I START WRITING TOO EARLY? D:)

 

[Zhorken]

because quality over quantity applies to literature.

Finished products, sure, but practicing is totally quantity over quality. You're only going to get good by doing it a whoooole lot and figuring out what works and what doesn't, and if you worry about making everything you do quality-over-quantity, making every single thing important, you'll never make any progress on that. I'm pretty sure this applies to pretty much everything ever. I mean, you have to pay attention and stay interested and actually notice things and everything, but the bulk of it is just turning off your filter and doing, and a fifty-thousand-word race sounds to me like a great tool for doing that.

(Personally, I'm really, really bad at this. I get anxious as fuck over everything I do. But when I can get myself to just go ahead, it works like magic, like nothing else.)

 

[Harlequin]

Look at it this way: If you write 5000 words a month (let's say a month is 30 days) you're writing 167 words a day. If I do NaNoWriMo I write 1667 words a day. I'm getting a lot more practise writing and getting my thoughts and images down on the screen than you are, at least during that month.

Also, I find NaNoWriMo fun. It's nice to have that push, that little extra bit of motivation to get things done. And at the end of November you've got most of a novel knocked out which shouldn't be too hard to finish and whip into shape.

It's a useful tool. I don't think anyone is suggesting that you only ever produce quantity and never quality. That's silly. Quantity does, though, allow a writer to get more of a feel for what the writer enjoys writing, or doesn't enjoy writing, or even a feel for what you're bad at writing.

Practise makes perfect, and for a lot of people NaNoWriMo is a great opportunity to get some practise in. And it's fun! I use it to write things that I don't want to make into a proper project, at least not just yet, to see if I like the world and to work out bugs and holes in my planning.

 

[Dannichu]

My sister always has a ton on in November, so has her own GrabbyNo in the summer, where she cracks out 50000 words over 30 days (this year, I beleive, from mid-June to mod-July). Although it's probably easier to do it in November because then you've got encouragement from other people doing it at the same time, even with local meet-ups and stuff, but you can set yourself a different but similar deadline and force yourself to stick to it.

 

[opaltiger]

Not very quickly (~5000 words a month), but I still get it done, and at a quality I'm satisfied with.

If you wrote 50,000 words in one month, then spent the next nine months revising it, I'm sure you'd get the same end result. :P In fact I would wager it would go faster.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

(I'm kind of unnerved by the fact that everyone that responded here is so much older than me. DID I START WRITING TOO EARLY? D:)

Definitely not! It's never too early to start writing! =D Writing takes practice; the more you write, the better you'll get, and the earlier you start, the more you can practice! Don't worry, you're never too young to write.

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

This is going to be my first year where I actually have the time to do NaNoWriMo and it's going to be fabulous.

 

[Tailsy]

I like NaNoWriMo because I never win and it's hilarious. but getting 30k is better than my usual of never writing anything at all for months on end because well hey, it's already in my head and that's fine for me!

 

[yiran]

If you wrote 50,000 words in one month, then spent the next nine months revising it, I'm sure you'd get the same end result. :P In fact I would wager it would go faster.

Yeah, that's true. The problem is, I don't think I am capable of completing that 50,000 words in one month, even if I abandon my perfecting routines and write non-stop. This is because I'm a really easily distracted person, and often after writing like a few hundred words I'm off to a chat with my friend on skype, team fortress 2, or browsing tumblr. But who knows, maybe I'll be able to actually pay attention in November. :P

Definitely not! It's never too early to start writing! =D Writing takes practice; the more you write, the better you'll get, and the earlier you start, the more you can practice! Don't worry, you're never too young to write.

Well, I've been quite confident about my writing before (because I've made my friends who are the same age/slightly older than me write, and I write better than them by... quite a lot (you don't say "the space station went boom" in a dramatic situation, and you also don't say "I let my guard down" when you're facing your trusted friends), but I'm probably still no good in professional fanfic standards (if that phrase makes any sense). I keep on seeing the more experienced authors saying "my old stories are really bad", so I'm not sure if I should write, because it might be bad. And really, I've no right to judge my own work on its quality, so what I think is really good might be a dump of trash on the internet.

But whatever, I'll just try to write, and get feedback. That's how you get better, right?

 

[surskitty]

I keep on seeing the more experienced authors saying "my old stories are really bad", so I'm not sure if I should write, because it might be bad.

How do you intend on getting better, then?

I write fairly frequently. A lot of what I write is shit. Some of it isn't, though, and the shit I write these days is much better than the shit I wrote a while ago.

 

[yiran]

How do you intend on getting better, then?

I write fairly frequently. A lot of what I write is shit. Some of it isn't, though, and the shit I write these days is much better than the shit I wrote a while ago.

I did mention at the end I'd just write. Yeah, my post is kind of inconsistent.

Meh, I should probably write something I consider a good oneshot then post it here and see how well it's received.

Well, you see, I never really finish stuff. Currently I have two unfinished oneshots, one of which has been sitting around for months, and I also have like 5 plots for stories floating in my mind. Which means I'm never able to concentrate on one (except for the long ones, but those never get finished until like 2 years later).

I'm making no sense and I'm just rambling. Sorry. Anyway, point is, I've understood why people enjoy NaNoWriMo, and I will try and participate in it this year :D