November: National Novel Writing Month

[TheFifthElement]

November is officially National Novel Writing Month!

Sign up here if you want to participate: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

The aim is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of November - no editing, no quality control, just WRITE, WRITE, WRITE.

I've just signed up, and am now pooping my pants 'cos I've no idea what I'm going to write about!

Is anyone else going to join? Can we have a Lit-net NaNoWriMo 2008 support group? Share your experiences here....

[TheFifthElement]

711 words. That's a record for me!

[Virgil]

Would be nice but I can't even write 3000 words in a month.

[TheFifthElement]

hehehe, that's because you're probably a procrastinator like me and spend so much time thinking about thinking about writing that you never actually get to it. Which is exactly what I do. Or spend so much time picking and choosing that perfect word and perfect phrase that progress is horribly slow. But that's what this venture is all about: acknowledging that half the battle of writing is writing (or lack of!). So they encourage you to just write and not worry about whether what you're writing is good, or readable, or interesting or so on. Just write, and write regularly. Later you can edit and make it good. That's the theory anyway.

I downloaded one of the pep talks from last year, from Neil Gaiman. This is what he says about novel writing:

You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began---a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read---it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

Welcome to the club.

That's how novels get written.

You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

sound advice, methinks

[Virgil]

Thanks Fifth. You're right. That's what I need to do. But unfortunately November is going to be a killer month at work for me. I do intend to write a short story in December for sure and if possible maybe even a second one, given some free time around the holidays. Oh, I just remembered. I had promised to read your short story. Let me go see.

[TheFifthElement]

I could goad you some more but then you might not read my story! Dilemma! November is a poopy month for me too, which I realised after I signed up. Next weekend my mother is visiting, and the week after that I'm away for two days, then the weekend after that it's my daughter's 5th birthday so we'll have visitors and a party to plan. Sigh. There's never a good time is there? And here I am blathering on Lit-net and not writing a word of my novel

[TheFifthElement]

No one?...

[Scheherazade]

I often wish that they changed the timing... Maybe in summer months more people would take part?

[mercymyqueen]

I'll do it gladly =]

[TheFifthElement]

So mercymyqueen - have you signed up? I'm now on day 5 and so far have written exactly 2023 words. I am not on target

Scher, I know what you mean but I think whenever it is it will always be a bad month. In summer people are on holiday so won't want to do it, December is too close to Christmas etc. The way they sell it is that you just decide to do it and write, don't edit, don't look back at what you've written, don't worry about continuity or storyline or those things. They come later. You get pep talks by e-mail and so far there have been really good, from established writers, they share in your experience and say 'look, this is how it is if you want to be a writer' and you don't feel so alone.

So there's still time to sign up if you want to

[Nightshade]

Im waiting till uni is over to do it, of course we could always create our own, shall we say slightly less ambitious target over the summer here at the litnet which might turn out to be quite an intresting summer challenge really.

[waryan]

Perhaps they could host two? Good Gaiman quote indeed, thanks!

[Ashurbanipal]

This sounds like a fun idea. However, Capote's response to "On the Road" bears repeating: "That's not writing, its typing"

[TheFifthElement]

Or in the words of Jonathon Stroud (from one of the pep talks)

So I did exactly the same thing you're doing this November, and set myself a strict schedule of pages per week to get the first draft done. In my case this worked out at about 100 pages per month for 3-4 months. Each day I kept strict records of what I achieved; each day I tottered a little nearer my goal. Five pages per working day was my aim, and sometimes I made this easily. Other times I fell woefully short. Some days I was happy with what I got down; some days I could scarcely believe the drivel that clogged up the page. But quality was not the issue right then. Quality could wait. This was n't the moment for genteel self-editing. This was the time when the novel had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into existence, and that meant piling up the pages.

So I did it, one page at a time, even when it was like pulling teeth or squeezing blood from a stone. I did it. And you can do it too.

This is just a first draft, after all. It doesn't have to be a perfect thing. I once met an author who claimed only to write when actively inspired. She was a fine and venerated writer, so I didn't let my jaw loll open too widely in her presence, but I didn't really buy her claim, and I still don't buy it now. If 'inspiration' is when the words just flow out, each one falling correctly on the page, I've been inspired precisely once in ten years. All the rest of the time, as I've been piecing together my seven novels, it's been a more or less painful effort. You write, you complete a draft in the time you've got, you take a rest. Then—later, when you've recovered a little—you reread and revise. And so it goes. And little by little the thing that started off as a heap of fragments, a twist of ideas trapped inside your head, begins to take on its own shape and identity, and becomes a living entity, separate from yourself.

[AdoreroDio]

I'm writing but don't think I'll finish! [: