NaNoWriMo: Pros and Cons

National Novel Writing Month. Write 50,000 words in a month? Gah! And yet, many people tackle this incredible challenge every year. I've tried it three times so far, but only succeeded in generating the required amount of words once. That time, I worked on a novel that I knew really well. I had a detailed outline, I'd done character profiling, and I knew exactly where to take my story. So, the one time I 'won' NaNo, I cranked out 58k words in three weeks.

The other two times? I didn't know the story or the characters nearly as well, and I wasn't willing to sacrifice them just to meet my word count. So, I slowed down and did some exploring. It took much longer to finish those drafts, but when I was done, I was happy with them.

I'm not doing NaNo this year, but I have some friends who are going for it and that got me thinking about the pros and cons of this endeavor.

Pro: You get 50k words written.
Con: 50k words of what?

Pro: Even if you end up with 50k words of crap, you've at least got a solid start on your project.
Con: Yeah, unless you have to chuck it all and start over. So why do it right in the first place?

Pro: Even if you have to chuck it all, you've at least had the chance to really explore the idea and characters, and there's probably some nuggets in there that are worth keeping.
Con: But then you have to search through 50k words of crap to find a couple nuggets.

Anyone have anything else to add? :)

Clearly, NaNo has worked well for me, and it also hasn't worked at all. It all depended on the circumstances surrounding my projects. Have you done NaNo? How has it fared for you? Are you doing it now?

NaNoWriMo Update

I always schedule most of my posts weeks ahead of time.  That way I can focus on other things, like writing, reading other blogs, responding to those who comment on my blog, etc.  And I'm usually very good about not missing a post.

Not so today.

I got so caught up in NaNo that I just realized I didn't have a book review scheduled for today.  Um...oops.  :)  NaNo is taking all my spare thoughts every minute of every day.  Every chance I get, I sit down to write.  My house is a wreck, and I haven't folded laundry in two weeks.  If we need something to wear, we go rummaging through the basket of clean clothes.  :)  So it really shouldn't be surprising that I didn't have a post written for today.

But, I'm okay with it because I'm making good progress.  Considering how little time I get to sit down and write, I'm quite proud that I just passed 18k words last night.  I'll keep plugging away, and I'm still hopeful that I'll meet my goal of finishing the first draft by the end of the month.  We'll see, though.

So, no review this week.  I'll have one next week for sure, I promise. :)

ETA: Per LM Preston's suggestion, here's the first page of my NaNo project. Enjoy!

THE BIG BOOK OF LIES
Chapter 1: The Bribe
Dad slid the small velvet box across the cracked formica table. “For you, Alexis. Neil says this is at least two thousand years old, probably older.”

I stared at the box. I really wanted to open it because I was nuts about antiques and other really old stuff. Whatever was in the box had come from Dad’s head archeologist—Neil, who was on a dig in Peru—and I was dying to see what was inside.

But it was tainted. This box, plus a sumptuous milkshake at our favorite diner, was nothing but a bribe to get me to stop sulking. I knew it. Dad knew it. And that was the only thing keeping me from snatching up his gift.

Then again, it was an unspoken bribe. Technically, that meant I could ignore Dad’s intent, take the box, and do as I pleased. It’s what he would do...which was reason enough for me not to.

So, fine. I would stop sulking for the next few hours. At least Dad knew he had to give me something for it. Especially after what he’d put me and Mom through.

I pried open the box, and a tear-drop-shaped piece of carved stone was nestled on a bed of satin. It was old, all right. The surface was pocked and worn, and you could barely see the scroll design etched into the surface. Not the best piece I’d ever seen, but still good.

I turned it over. It was heavier than I expected, and...warm. The way stone feels when it’s been sitting in the sun for a long time. My fingers kind of tingled, too.

A hole had been cut through the narrow part at the top, like someone had strung it onto something. A piece of jewelry? Strange. Jewelry from this time period in Peru was usually gold. That made the piece unique. I loved it instantly.

“I thought you’d like it.” A triumphant smile stretched across Dad’s face.

I suppressed a snort, snapped the box shut, and tucked it into my pocket.

NaNoWriMo--How's It Going?

So?  For those of you doing NaNo, how's it going?  Are you keeping with your goals?  Are you ahead?  Behind?  Are you able to ignore the fact that your words might be crap?  :)

Me?  I'm behind.  I set myself a goal of 1000 words a day, but so many unexpected things came up that I didn't even make half that.  Fortunately, last friday my youngest son went to a friend's house to play so I was able to get back up to speed.

I am currently close to 5500 words so far. I know, kind of pathetic, considering some of my writing buddies have more than twice that many words.  But hey, it's better than nothing, right?  :)

Although, the goal I set myself was to have a finished draft by the end of the month.  At this rate, it's going to be February before I'm done.  So I need to figure out a way to step up the pace...which means I'm going to have to roar like a mama bear whenever my writing time is threatened.  :)

Yeah, we'll see how that goes.  :)

NaNoWriMo--Who's Doing It?

In one week, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will begin. Those who participate will be frantically trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1600 words per day, including weekends and (American) Thanksgiving. If you can't do weekends, then you have 22 days, and need to write 2275 words per day. If you can't write on those two days for Thanksgiving, then you have 20 days, and need to write 2500 words per day.

For me, my kids are home from school the whole week of Thanksgiving. So that means I'd have 17 days, and would need to write about 3000 words per day. And, I'd have to do it before my youngest son comes home from kindergarten (he's half-day). Which means I'd have two hours each day to write 3000 words. Um...not very realistic. :)

I did it last year, and I managed to organize play dates and some other stuff to get my writing done. I made the 50k words, but was so frazzled by the end of it that it wasn't a pleasant experience. So, this year, I'm going to do something different. I've decided to participate, but I'm not waiting until Nov 1st. :-D I've already started, and have about 4000 words so far. And, I've set myself a reasonable goal of 1000 words per day. I can definitely do that in two hours.

So, starting November, I'll post my word counts on the NaNo website, but I won't reach the 50k word count. However, what I will have is a strong, working first draft that I can mold into something to give my agent when it's done. That's better than 50k words any day. And, I won't be a quivering puddle by the time December rolls around. :)

So, are you participating? If so, do you know what you want to get out of it?

Post NANO Update

I don't know about the rest of you NaNo-ers, but I'm still tired. :) My final word count was 58,509 words, which I wrote in three weeks - I had two kids home from school the whole week of Thanksgiving, and I got zero computer time after that. So writing all those words in such a short amount of time took a lot of brain power, but I'm slowly recovering. :)

In the last couple weeks of NaNo, there were many threads/blog posts/conversations about its effectiveness. Many people were cursing the whole idea of NaNo. Lots knew that they were writing dreck and had nightmares about re-reading any of it. Some were finding NaNo helpful, though didn't know how much they'd written would be usable in the actual novel. And a very few got a lot out of it - like, they got a real novel out of it. I'm one of those very few.

Why did some get so much out of NaNo while others were tearing their hair out and screaming at whoever thought this whole thing up? Well, writing process has much to do with it - some write faster than others. The ability to deal with stress and a heavy workload also contributes. But I think there is one thing that really stands out: goals.

When you sat down to write for NaNo, what was your goal? To write 50,000 words? To write a novel? To kickstart your novel? I took a look at what writers were saying while under the NaNo influence, and sort of mapped out goals to outcome.

In most cases, if the goal was to write 50,000 words, the end result was dreck with lots and lots of unnecessary words/subplots/characters/etc. If the goal was to kickstart the novel, most writers ended up with pages and pages of unusable text, but had a really solid feel for the novel and were excited about sitting down to really write it. If the goal was to write a novel, most writers did that, even if they didn't get to 50,000 words.

My goal was this: by the end of November, I wanted to have a novel written, regardless of how many words I ended up with. It so happened that my novel was longer than that, and it's still not finished. But word count was not my first priority. The story was. I set a daily word count goal, and did my best to reach it - but, if I couldn't reach it, I did not sacrifice the story.

If you let the word count take priority, then that's what you're going to end up with. But if you let the story take priority, then you may or may not end up with 50,000 words, but you'll have a good story. The key is to take a look at how you work, and then tailor NaNo to your needs. That way you can get the most out of this truly grueling process.

I doubt I'll do NaNo again, but if I do, there are some things I know I need to have. I must have an outline, and character journals. Also, I need to have a solid first chapter - because, for me, everything flows downhill. Without those things, I would get nothing from NaNo. But with those things, I could get a novel, which would be my goal.

What was your goal? And what did you end up with?

Final NANO Update!!

I did it!!!

Yesterday, I crossed the 50k mark and kept going. I ended the day at 55,032, and I only have two more chapters to go in my story. YAY!!!!

Oh, I'm tired. This has been one incredibly exhausting experience. It was good in many ways, though. I learned more about myself as a writer, and I now have the skeleton of an incredibly daunting story that's been haunting me for seven years. I'm so incredibly happy!

At the same time, though, I've also learned that NaNo just isn't for me. I'm glad I did it this year, but I doubt I'll do it again. NaNo doesn't allow for the methodical and organized parts of my brain to get a say in how the manuscript is cranked out, and they're very unhappy with me right now. So I now I have to go back through the story and appease them. But I think I'm going to wait until January...

Right now, I'm going to go collapse in a puddle.

Third NaNo Update

As of right now, I have written 44,064 words! Yay!

Next week, my kids are home from school all week. So, basically, I have today and tomorrow to reach 50k word.

So, I'm off to go write... :)

How are the rest of you NaNo-ers doing? Still hanging in there? Feel like you're drowning in words? Have blown my word count out of the water? :)

Second NANO update

As of this morning, I'm at 25,364 words. Halfway there!

This same time last year, I'd only managed to write half of what I've currently finished. So I'm pretty proud of that. But my life last year was much crazier than it is now, so it's been easier to keeping to my writing schedule this time around. I still have things get in the way (like yesterday, today, next thursday, and the whole week of Thanksgiving), but I'm able to manage them better than I did last year. Which is a very good thing.

I'm also pretty happy with what I've written so far. There is an interesting thread on Verla Kay's Blueboards about what NaNoWriMo has taught you about yourself. It's really interesting to read about what others have learned.

What have I learned about myself? Well, I learned that I can be a pretty fast drafter. And, if I target specific areas of the novel, then the whole thing won't be suffering from lack of quality (just the untargeted areas :) ). So, I'm targeting the basic plot right now, and I feel I have a good structure from which to build the rest of the story.

I have also discovered just how much I love revision. I've always liked it, but I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to revising this novel once it's done. And NaNo is allowing me a quick venue to get the bare bones onto the page, and I am itching to put the flesh and bones on it once it's done. :)

So, how are the rest of you doing? And what has NaNo taught you about yourself?

First NANO update

So? How are all of you doing?

I had a very slow start. I had just finished revisions for my agent only a couple days before NaNo started, so my head was stuck in another story, AND it was stuck in edit mode. My inner editor was up front and center, ready to scream at the crap that a first draft always generates. And, the voice coming out of me wasn't from the MC of my new project. It was from my old one. So it took A LOT to shift away from both edit mode and my old story, and really get into my new one. But I think I'm there now, which is good.

I started NaNo on monday, since I'm a weekday word warrior, and have tried to hit 2500 words per day.

As of last night, I am at 8368 words, which is slightly more than my goal. It's good, but it hasn't been easy. It turns out that the few hours when my kids are at school are not enough to crank out 2500 words. I can only manage about a thousand. But my kids have been great so far, and they've been playing well for an hour or so after lunch, and that's usually enough for me to reach my daily goal. I had some time last night after they went to bed, and I got almost another thousand words written. So I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.

How are the rest of you doing? Cranking words out? Banging your head against the wall? Already panting with exhaustion? :)

Edited to add today's word count: I'm now up to 11,097!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo...2009

It's that time again!! Time to crank out 50,000 words in thirty days.

I tried doing this last year, but my time was majorly hijacked and I didn't get very far. But we had far too much going on in our lives at the time, so I'm not surprised.

Things have calmed down, so I'm going to give it another whirl. Though I won't be able to work weekends, or Thanksgiving, which means I have to crank out 2500 words per day instead of 1667. And there are a couple extra days in there where the kids won't have school, so there's no guarantee I'll get anything done on those days. I'll have to double up somehow on the days they are in school, which could get sticky.

But, we'll see what happens. At the very least, I'll have written a big chunk of my project, which is better than zero. :)

Because I'm doing NaNo, I won't be writing up book reviews. Instead, I'll be posting my word count progress. Mondays will remain the usual posts on craft, plus author interviews (which are all scheduled and ready to go). After NaNo is over, I'll get back to my regular book review schedule.

So, who else is doing NaNo?

Final NANO Update

Well, I got over 15,000 words written. Considering how much went wrong this month, I'm pretty happy! :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I was supposed to post pictures of the cake my oldest son wanted to bake, except there aren't any. He changed his mind from baking a cake to making his favorite vegetable: okra. Yes, okra. Who am I to argue with that? :) So there are no cake pictures, because there was no cake. But, christmas is coming and I've promised a cake that looks like a present to a good friend of mine. Those pictures will be forthcoming... :)

On a complete different note, we took our boys to the circus for the first time yesterday. Aside from it being a little too long, they loved it! My youngest was dancing and clapping in his seat the whole time - it was really cute. :)

NANO update #2

Another week has gone by, and the flu has still infiltrated my house! My youngest son was down with it all week. Thursday was his first day back to preschool, and I got a little writing done on friday. So I'm up to 13,250 out of 50,000. *sigh* I was hoping to be further along, but oh well. :) With a sick child in the house, what are ya gonna do? :)

On the plus side, I absolutely LOVE my main character! I love writing her story, and right now I'm just writing what she tells me to write. It's such a joy, and her Voice is so strong! I guess you could say I'm in the first draft lovey-dovey stage, but there's more to it. She's a fabulous character to write, and so fun! That right there is going to see me through to the end of this story, and probably a zillion revisions afterwards. :)

On a completely different note, Editorial Anonymous has offered to grade writers on their ability to write a synopsis, based on a well-known novel. You'd think she'd have writers banging her door down, right? Nope. She's only got two, but she's giving everyone the weekend to write up a synopsis and email it to her. So if you want to test your synopsis-writing ability, get out those notepads!

NANO update

Two weeks have passed, and I'm sitting at 12,250 words. I'm supposed to be at 25,000 right now...leaving me 37,750 to write before the end of the month. That means I'll need to write 2517 words each day, including weekends. Or, 3775 words per day without the weekends.

Hmm...ain't gonna happen. :)

But hey, considering I only get two hours of writing time a day (not including weekends), and I caught a minor flu bug this week, I think I'm doing pretty good. :) I'll stick to my goal of 2500 words per weekday until I've finished this draft. Nothing bad about that!

On a completely different note, Nathan Bransford had a fantastic post on his blog about how the publishing industry should handle the current economy. The comments section is full of some really great ideas. If you're interested in such things, head on over and add your two cents. :)

Right now, I'm off to the SCBWI IL Prairie Writer's Day conference. There's a great roster of speakers, so this should be fun!! :) I'll do a full write up next week sometime.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo

Every November, the National Novel Writing Month website charges writers to write 50,000 words in one month. It starts at 12:01am, November 1st, and ends at 12:00am, November 30th. Once you’ve finished, you upload your novel to their website, where they run a script to check your word count, then issue a PDF winner’s certificate and web badge. They do not check content, just word count.

There are a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum for this exercise. Some people balk at the idea of churning out so much so quickly, because the quality of the writing could suffer. Some people find it exhilarating to turn off their inner editor and crank out whatever pops into their heads. A lot of people ask “is this something I should do?”

My answer? It depends. :) I know, very non-committal.

Personally, this is something I'd never be able to do. At least, not the way everyone else does it. I can write quickly, but my writing doesn’t thrive under these circumstances. I *know* that if I churn out 50,000 words in a month, without editing as I go, it’s going to be terrible. And I’ll likely have to rewrite the majority of it - I'd rather start over then overhaul a manuscript like this. Because I already know this, I’ll have no motivation to finish it. So I'd have to do it differently.

50,000 words in thirty days breaks down to 1667 words per day. Except I can't work weekends, and there are five weekends (totaling ten days) during the month of November. That means I'd have to get all my writing done in twenty days, which is 2500 words per day. I could probably do that...but then, there's my writing process to consider.

When I write, I don’t think about word count. I think about the story, have a “road map” in mind, and let the word count emerge on its own. If I was targeting a specific word count, my story would suffer. And that’s like sticking a knife in my heart and twisting... Also, when I'm writing a new story, I have to have the beginning absolutely perfect before I can move on to the rest. In my head, everything comes out of the beginning. So, if it isn't right, then my story is heading in the wrong direction. So I spend a lot of time on my beginning, rewriting a zillion times. But, once I've got it settled, the rest of the story quickly falls into place.

So, if I participated in NANO, I'd have to set myself a 2500 word count per day, but not be concerned with the cumulative word count. I may or may not finish by the end of the month, but I suspect writing with so many "buddies" would be so much fun that I wouldn't mind not getting the cool web badge to put on my website. :)

There are others who absolutely love NANO just the way it is. Some need this kind of permission to turn off the inner editor. Some just want to see if they can write so much in such a short time span. Some may be exploring their own writing process. And some just find it fun. Originally, I'd decided not do NANO. But now I'm thinking it might be fun, so I signed up. And who cares if I "win?" :)

So, if NANO is something you’re considering but you don’t know whether or not to do it, ask yourself this: what do you want to get out of it? A completed novel? The chance to explore an idea with no rules limiting you? A test to see if you can write 50,000 words in a month? That cool web badge? Whatever the reason, if you think you’ll get something out of it, then go for it! If you don't think you'll get anything out of it, well... :)

A big reason I'm doing this is for the comraderie, and I'd love to be your writing buddy. Drop me a line or look me up if you like. My Nano ID is 'tabwriter.'