In a couple of days, thousands of crackerjack crackpots will start putting fingers to keyboards to spend four weeks spewing out 50,000 spontaneous words in the global November marathon that is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. (Yes, I’m fighting the urge to add a hyphen.)
Every artist needs an excuse/incentive to do their art thing now and then, so now that my surgery is past and I’m returning to the world of the wakeful, NaNoWriMo seems the perfect excuse/incentive to get back into that nonfiction book draft of mine that has been collecting dust. Sure, it’s not a novel, but so what? There’s also a whole life around that draft that needs to be attended to at the same time, but luckily neither NaNoWriMo nor early drafts have to be good: they just have to be. You can fix ‘em in post later.
Want to write but don’t want to start a novel? Need an excuse to get going on a new project or a work in progress? Come join me (and others) in NahNoWriMo, the non-novel writing month that’s like NaNoWriMo, but not quite. Whether you’re itching to write a memoir, screenplay, doctoral thesis, fan fiction, prose poetry, short stories, haiku, or 50k-worth of blog posts, don’t let the NaNo rules (such as they are) stop you: write whatever you want. Get those fingers moving, and just say Nah.
[Original (pre-h) rebel badge courtesy of Pax.]
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I had already signed up knowing that I would not begin a new novel but keep working on the one I’m writing. I appreciate the NaNo support, but I think I know more about my writing process than they do! Why do you have to start a new novel? Oh, you don’t! I won’t post my final tally and “compete” or whatever for that 50,000 word halo because I wouldn’t want to lie about breaking the rules. And who needs a halo anyway?
I love it, as that’s just what I’m intending to do – work on writing (fiction and non-fiction), but not stressing over starting a brand new project. I just want to get back to writing, period, and getting a good word count out of it. Get some work done on stalled drafts, maybe start tackling holiday exchange stories early (for once, instead of a couple days before deadline…), start public blogging on a more regular basis.
So yeah, go NahNo!!!
Exactly! I applaud the NaNo organization and their efforts to get people to start writing and stop stopping themselves; the whole project is a great idea. But why write a new novel if there are other things you’d prefer? I see no reason to stop oneself from participating just because of genre or style or stage of project. And mutual suffering/encouragement is always a helpful thing.
Jane, I’ll take 50,000 words over a halo any day. I’d only end up bending mine anyway.
I look forward to commiserating over word counts, Jane and sock. A couple of other Twitter friends look to be going for it as well despite the “rules.”
I’ve attempted NaNo by the book maybe three times, and once I did get to 50k on a brand-spanking new “novel”–but it was total crap. I ended up cannibalizing the results, taking bits and pieces of what I wrote and shaping them into some short stories, however. So it wasn’t all a waste.
At this point I’m just about the word count, however and on whatever it comes about.
Right on.
Count me in for NahNo! I have too much going on to start a new novel but I’d love the incentive to work on projects that are already started, be they my languishing Biffno novella or the multitudes of photos that need editing and displaying.
Excellent. Go, Kelpie, go!