Forum / Nanowrimo, the Fictionaut Perspective

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Oct 28, 02:48pm

  (First, I'm posting this with an ulterior motive. I'm now writing articles for the Fictionaut Blog about new groups on the site, but the pickings are slim. So I thought every other week I'd see what was going on in the forum and come up with good material.)

  Nanowrimo is nearly upon us. As most of us are serious writers, not the common weekend warrior sorts who write those 50,000 words in November and then wander off, I want to get your thoughts about Nano.

  Do you participate?

  Do you think that Nano in some way hurts us, serious writers? Does it help?

  If you do participate, how do you go about it? Have you "won" in past years? Have you done anything with your Nano novel?

  I'd love any other thoughts you have about it.

  Thank you!

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Oct 28, 03:10pm

  Lynn,

  I'm afraid I don't really count as a 'Serious Writer' (Insert "the serious writer and his mustache" joke here). That said, *every* month is nanowrimo month for me.

  I must say, though, 50,000 words a month? A thousand finished words a day is about my limit. John Fante bragged he could do 2,000 a day, but that's four novels a year, which means he should have had dozens. But eight is enough... ;)

  Thanks,

  Bill

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Oct 28, 04:02pm

  Lynn,

  I don't participate. Challenges and cheerleading groups give me a chill, but that's a personal aversion, maybe. Might even be unreasonable.

  A novel proceeds at its own pace. The work of writing a novel can only benefit in a structured atmosphere, but the discipline required to follow through beyond the rough manuscript comes from within. Yes, you can throw 50,000 words together in a month, but revision's the hard part. Besides, if a writer needs competition or an external challenge to even get started, how serious is the effort? How far will it go beyond stage one?

  Nonetheless, if the structure of a challenge helps someone develop the necessary habits, the foundation of a structured schedule, that's a good thing. But at some point, a novelist has to break away from the hurrahs and the klieg lights, get alone and get busy. Otherwise, maybe a better choice for the artist would be show business. It might even be easier to get a speaking part in a film than to get a novel published.

  Something to consider.

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Oct 28, 05:58pm

  I do participate. Don't care anything about "winning" or meeting daily goals. Last year I got 30,000 words in on my novel. For me, that's a lot of writing in 30 days. This year I'm using it to start something new. I have a bunch of friends, some I've met doing #cnftweet and others on fbook and fictionaut, and some are the in-the-flesh kind, and we are "buddies" on NaNo. My sons also do it. It's just kind of a fun way to get some work done at a time of the year when my students want lots of attention as the semester comes to an end. It's one way I've succeeded in carving out some time and I guess being part of a group helps me claim it.

  I don't really see how it can harm anyone unless they have unreasonable expectations or are super competitive and fret over word counts.

  Writing always takes place in revision no matter where or under what circumstances you pound out the first words.

  Not sure I get the distinction between "serious writer" and a NaNoWriMo participant. You can't be both? Maybe I need to write "The Serious Writer and Her NaNoWriMo Mojo."

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Oct 28, 06:01pm

  In case anyone wants to buddy up on NaNo, I'm PatriciaJaneH there.

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Oct 28, 06:08pm

  Hmmm... NaNoWriMo... I have participated before, and I might again. And I am a serious writer (with mustache, pussy, ipad, what-have-you, fill-in-the-blankety-blank)...

  I even sit down EVERY day before the blasted sun comes up to write. So I truly am serious.

  BUT... I think it ludicrous to think someone -- anyone -- could pen a novel in 30 days. Furthermore, 50k words does not most novels make. A novella, perhaps. A genre mystery or romance or even a YA or middle-school book, perhaps. But I am a serious writer. So.

  That said, I love NaNoWriMo. Why? Because it is a month in which I banish the editor. She takes a hike, wanders off to glass-half-empty land and leaves me to wallow in words and ideas, unattended. WHEN I participate, my intention for NaNo is to write. Just write. One project. All others go by the wayside until December -- no flashes, no poems, no edits (unless by editorial order), no other novels, no farting around on facebook. Yadayadayada...

  I also have no pretention I am writing a novel. Indeed, my only goal during NaNo is to PREWRITE. That is, I let my head go (much as a rider lets his horse's go during a gallop across a meadow) and write: plot ideas, character sketches, backstory. Indeed, in 2009, I spent 24,000 words writing a diary of a mother as a young woman who only figures in the abstract in my novel,but whoa! Did that help me figure out the emotional status and family relationships of my protag when I actually sat down to write the blasted book.

  I do the same thing in April, except I write a poem a day. Nothing more, nothing less.

  NaNoWriMo and NaPoWriMo serve as very good 'vacations' for me. Very valuable times when I focus on one thing and one thing only. I get a lot of fodder from NaNoWriMo, and nearly every poem I have ever published originated in its rawest form during NaPoWriMo.

  I'll be getting into the saddle this Tuesday. I need to get my head around THE MINISTER'S WIFE. Anyone care to join me? Peace...

• 
  Matthew Robinson

  Oct 29, 12:47am

  I did NaNo in 2009 and 2010, "won" both years, not in the sense that I had suddenly written the Great American Novel, but by forcing myself to form a structured routine, I gained ... a structured routine for writing. There was a deadline, and deadline is a deadline. I learned the value of word count goals. The first novel was a throwaway, the second I turned into a recycling bin of ideas, but the real gain, for me as a young writer, was structuring a routine.

  I'm not doing it this year, as I've got a novel in progress (which I started in January), but maybe I'll get into the spirit of the month and pick up my pace, as I've lollygagged for the last month or two.

  Linda- I like looking at it as vacation, too. It's fun, no matter how terrible the manuscript ends up being, especially if you join a group or two.

• 
  brian warfield

  Oct 29, 08:57pm

  taking a whole month to write a novel is for wimps! check <a href="http://www.3daynovel.com/">this</a> out.

• 
  Gill Hoffs

  Oct 29, 09:32pm

  Hmm, I think NaNoWriMo can be useful for some people, and a pleasantly social exercise for others - apparently there is a lovely feeling of camaraderie involved [I have a few friends who do it and really enjoy the networking side, and even set up a writing group afterwards].

  As regards writing a novel in a month - not notes, not a novella, but a novel of say 80,000 words+, I think that suits some writers very well, actually. Some people may find a novel evolves and develops naturally for them over a period of years. Some may write one, or at least a complete, comprehensive first draft, in a matter of days or weeks. Each to their own. Whatever works.

  I have written two books so far, each in under a month [though to nitpick, my last one was over 6 weeks with a 2 week break in the middle due to being out of the country, if I remember right - which I found very painful]. I started a third on Thursday and hope to complete it by Christmas - since it involves a lot of fact checking and research I think it may require a little more time.

  As regards their quality and length, I can only say that since I wrote them I'm too close to them to judge them as a reader [can a writer ever judge their own words simply as a reader? I don't know] but did enjoy writing them immensely. The first one was about 60 or 70,000, the second about 84,000 if I remember right. One was last October, one in July. The latter was recommended for shortlisting for the Virginia Prize a few weeks ago [it didn't make it on this time, but whew! what a ride!]. If I wasn't caring for my young son myself - and don't think for a minute I don't want to, I do! - and had whole days and nights free to write then I would probably do it in a week or ten days. But the reader picking up the end product of book [usually] neither knows nor cares how long it took to create.

  However long it takes, whatever it takes, let the words flow. Happy writing, everyone!

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Oct 31, 11:50pm

  Thanks for the great responses!

  I'm creating a Nano Fictionaut group. Feel free to post excerpts from your WIP, as well as messages of support, frustration, and general malarky. Spread the word to other Fictionaut nanowrimo participants, will you?

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 02, 03:50am

  Simenon used to bang out novels in two weeks. Just lock himself in a motel room, have his meals delivered, and type away. He published hundreds of books in his lifetime. So it's very possible to write novels quickly and well. But Simenon was a practiced, constant, and talented artist. Nanowrimo is for most like the couch potato who buys new jogging shoes and decides to run the marathon that starts tomorrow. Well, good luck with that. He might finish, but he's almost certainly not going to post a good time and he's going to be a disaster at the end of it.

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Nov 02, 12:20pm

  Do you think that the glut of unpolished novels from inexperienced writers gets in the way of better novels when it comes to trying to get them published? I guess it's always been that way, but do you think Nano makes the slush pile even deeper?

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Nov 02, 07:15pm

  That's why you never send queries out in December -- all the nanowers are putting out their latest and 'greatest'. Seriously.

• 
  Jane Hammons

  Nov 02, 09:14pm

  Maybe it's because I teach writing, but I have to say that nothing makes me happier than seeing a writer--a person who has maybe never thought of herself or himself as a writer--strapping on those newbie writing shoes and jogging toward the finish line.

  I don't know about you, but I wasn't born being able to write well. I wrote a lot of shitty stuff, and I submitted a lot of it for publication, too. Is there someone here who has not?

  Here's a mean-spirited, elitist piece on Nanowrimo from 2010 by Laura Miller that pretty much captures the spirit of Nano loathing.

  http://www.salon.com/2010/11/02/nanowrimo/

  I go now to post my word count for the day.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 02, 11:20pm

  I'm not an elitist, and I'm certainly not against beginners picking up the craft, if they love it and mean to do it well, but if people think there is not a downside to this, they're mistaken. To extend the running metaphor, how many out of shape people are going to die of heart attacks along the way? How many are going to quit half way and decide they're terrible runners? How many are going to finish and think they've done their running for the year and now they can spend the rest of the year goofing off. For all we know, Nanowrimo has killed off more potential writers than it's created.

  Why don't we have National Brain Surgery Month? Or, National NASA Scientist Month? Or, National Symphony Composer Month?

  Writing isn't a lark. For most, including me, it's difficult work that takes a serious commitment to do well, not just over a month, or a year, but a lifetime.

  So if it works for you, go ahead. Knock yourself out. But people should understand, one month a year does not make you a writer, just like one jog a year doesn't make you an athlete.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 02, 11:39pm

  Anyone who wants to write is actually allowed, as the U.S. hasn't turned into a regime country yet that disallows this practice. For those who feel otherwise, you can always move to S. America where certain countries on that continent still cut off fingers and incarcerate people who dare to perform this act of free will.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 06:28am

  I'll probably be sorry for this, but who, pray tell, in this thread or any other, wanted to forcibly "disallow" the practice of writing?

  Thanks for taking a stand for freedom, Susan, illogical though it may be. Probably best to wait to exile people, though, until after you've risked your neck for this country's freedom by wearing one of its military uniforms.

  You know, like I have.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Nov 03, 11:54am

  What's a serious writer? What is serious writing? Really, I much prefer my writers amusing and thoughtful.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 03:01pm

  Matt, same here. I turned down the fascist writing uniform that says "Serious Writers Only Need Apply" in favor of old jeans and a tee-shirt. I love writers who write for a Lark, even those whose lark doesn't rise.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Nov 03, 03:32pm

  Man should have more respect for the uniform than to use it in an argument. Military service is about duty and honor, not moral superiority or privilege.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 03:58pm

  JLD, you are the voice of reason.
  

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 04:19pm

  Hmm. So reasonable he's using the uniform in an argument in which he says you shouldn't use the uniform in an argument. Whatever.

  By the way, I claimed no moral superiority or privilege. I merely said those who weren't veterans should claim no moral superiority privilege over those who do.

  But hell, as usual Teppernaut wins again.

  You can start the pile on here.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 04:38pm

  Teppernaut. Hmm... It has a certain ring!
  BTW, Valve-naut, I also wore a uniform during a war. What war were you in?

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 04:40pm

  Of course, my question was never answered. Just ignored. Of course nobody wanted to forcibly stop anyone from writing-- or even discourage them. We were talking about one specific gimmick and that's all.

  Also, I'm now a fascist... That's reasonable. I guess it's because I didn't spend any time hanging in the Hamptons.

  And some of you guys may wonder why most threads here get 2 or 3 responses.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 04:43pm

  What war were you in?

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 04:44pm

  Desert Storm, Susan. What uniform were you in? Girl Scouts?

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 04:46pm

  No, I was a TWA Stew who flew with the troops into Vietnam.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 04:49pm

  Stay tuned for my next interview installment with Robert Olen Butler which will center around his war experience in Vietnam, how it affected his writing, and a little bit about my own involvement flying with the troops in that war.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 04:53pm

  I would love to see a photo of you in your army uniform, Valve-naut.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 04:53pm

  Yeah, I'll stay tuned for that. But that's not exactly a veteran, is it? Not that it matters. My point, which you ignored, was that it's never a good idea to be sending people you disagree with to the third world. No matter what your credentials.

  It would be really, really, really nice now if you let our feud drop and stop attacking me every chance you get. If I'm sick of it, imagine how others might feel.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 05:04pm

  I never said I was a veteran. I said Robert Olen Butler was a veteran of the Vietnam War. However, I did risk my life repeatedly flying into Vietnam during that time. I became deeply attached to the soldiers, medics, nurses and others with whom I flew in and out of that country. I'm proud of my "service" in that capacity.

  Your problem is that you name call: Teppernaut.
  You judge: Nan is no good.
  etc etc etc.

  I have no feud with you. I never think about you.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 05:09pm

  Sure you don't.

  And you judge also: nan is good.

  And what is "fascist" if not name-calling?

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 05:10pm

  James, you are a bit confused. I'm done here.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 05:10pm

  Bye, Susan. See you next time I participate in a thread.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Nov 03, 05:17pm

  Nope, you won't. Because talking to you is an exercise in futility. I'm too busy editing a Magazine to showcase "other writers", doing interviews, and coming out with a new book.
  You might consider doing something for other writers, too. It could possibly change you into an more empathetic person.
  Good Bye and Good Luck.

• 
  Jim V

  Nov 03, 05:23pm

  Well, I hope you mean it. I rather doubt it, but I do hope.

  As for me not helping other writers by positioning myself in editorial posts, shouldn't you have more respect for editing than to use it in an argument? Isn't editorial service about duty and honor, not moral superiority or privilege?

• 
  Matthew Robinson

  Nov 03, 08:17pm

  Bottom line, NaNoWriMo is fun if you're not too concerned with creating something perfect, but rather laying a foundation, creating a consistent routine for yourself, or just having fun with and socializing a vocation that is typically lonely and occasionally gruesome.

  If that's not your bag, so be it.

  Nothing else is relevant.

• 
  Estelle Bruno

  Nov 03, 11:26pm

  I can't speak for everybody else, but I'm enjoying it.

• 
  stephen hastings-king

  Nov 04, 12:19pm

  nano is either useful for you or its not. i did it last year and found it interesting. i learned a lot about how i work. for example, i learned that i am not the type of writer imagined in the design of the nano game. i dont work with rough drafts that make much of any sense....everything comes from editing. so the word limit goal seemed quickly arbitrary to me. but once i got around that, it became a daily constraint. turned out that i like those, so i keep going with them. as for nano this year...i considered linking to it, but knowing that the 1500/day aint gonna happen. at the moment, though, i'm puttering along making a piece more or less a day anyway. is that playing the nano game?

  in principle, though, i think it's great. i like routines when it comes to making things. i think diego rivera was mostly right when he said "inspiration is for amateurs"---mostly because he's right except when he isn't. but that's the way most things are---they are themselves until they're not.

• 
  Matt Potter

  Nov 04, 11:56pm

  "they are themselves until they're not" ... yes, quite perfect

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Nov 05, 12:41am

  Yes, I feel challenged by the idea of reading a novel a day for the month of November.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Nov 05, 08:37am

  i participated in nanowrimo in 2009 and it was hard on my family and on me. i pushed over 50,000 words out—felt like birthing a whale—and until today i can never look at those words without falling asleep within seconds. i had created a very powerful sleeping pill in a month! frank hinton had actually warned me not to hang my expectation too high. a year and a half later i wrote 30,000 words in 3 weeks which was just as daunting & now i'm through with prompts, contests and challenges until such time as prizes will be conferred upon my bald head without me having to do anything. i look back at it now as a good experience that taught me something about word production in large numbers, but like matthew i'm engaged in an exciting project & want to finish it in my own time now...which may be years from the look of it but that is the name of the novel game. a few pieces from that nano efforts were published, too & i might disembowel the sad carcass further when i find the time. good luck everyone who's in it this year round!

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Nov 05, 11:07am

  I agree with Marcus. There are no real shortcuts to writing a novel. Most novelists, in fact, will complete one or two books before producing one that is even salient. Norman Mailer admitted that he wrote two complete novels, his first, that were, in his own estimation, worthless and unsalvageable. Maybe you won't have so difficult a time as Mailer. Who's to say?

  But I've completed two novels that I will never get published, so I have to agree with him that the process requires a certain amount of 'practice' to perfect. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean you should try to write a novel in a month's time just to get the requisite 'practice' novel out of the way. There is good, thoughtful practice and there is something akin to automatic writing, getting words on the page to match the quota.

  Accelerating the pace can even be destructive to the writer's sense of value and lead to the kind of frustration that removes joy from the process altogether.

  Every writer should pursue their own course, but stop and think first about what you are doing... and why. Best of luck to everyone, whatever method you choose.

• 
  David Ackley

  Nov 05, 06:08pm

  This thread has finally reeled me in, after hours of warning myself away from it because of little interest in telling other writers what they should do.Or with any sense that one could. At best, one can only advise oneself--and then sometimes badly, if the resulting work was any indication. But teaching writing, one has a certain responsibility to one's students, assuming you'd like to see them continue, which I would for the most part. And I'd warn my students away from Nano like a snakepit. I can't imagine anything more destructive to one's confidence, and possibly one's skills than to write this many words in this short a time and realize at the end of it that the only way to redeem the effort would be to write that many words and more in what might be a doomed attempt to salvage the unsalvageable. Some might say this describes novel writing more generally--which may be why I stay away from writing them. At least with a short story the terms of success and failure become relatively clear early in the game, and perhaps writing a small worthless piece is easier to overcome than investing in a very large one.

  The reason I wouldn't participate in Nano myself is a little different though. It's because it's too much like work. Not the vivid and transfixing work of writing when the spell is on you, but like work work--9 to 5 punch-in, punch out, deadline dealing, soul-stiffening, do what the boss tells you work. I did that kind for a long time to feed myself and family and one thing I clearly came to understand when I got back to writing, is that neither I nor my creative work would at all benefit from reproducing its terms in my writing. Now I happily write when I feel like it, think about it as it hits me in the shower or on a walk in the woods, write when my wife is sitting next to me watching tv, write in the morning when I'm alone, or at night with 10 string guitar playing, or sometimes not at all--except in my head--for a week or two at a time. I write in other words, under any and all conditions available to me, determined that neither work nor spirit will be deadened by false demands,habit, artificial limits or strictures, or by the oppressive example of those who think that the transference of the Puritan work ethic to the artist's easel is the way to success--whatever that means.

• 
  Frank Vander Rasky

  Nov 05, 06:38pm

  Quotable claim to Nanowrimo writing fame: Marcus Speh “created a very powerful sleeping pill in a month!” :)

  Physicist Speh (or is it pharmacist Speh?), very funny, is.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Nov 05, 07:09pm

  @david i really like your take on nanowrimo as the puritan's attempt at novel writing...had never seen it like that and it does make sense to me now. alas, puritanism has taken over the work world. fortunately, it's too hard on anybody's soul in the long run and one would hope that creatives are too cool and sexy to put up with their own inner puritans for too long...

• 
  Finnegan Flawnt

  Nov 05, 07:13pm

  i actually wrote a number of <a href="http://virtualwritersworld.virtualwritersinc.com/?s=Flawnt">blog posts parallel to doing nanowrimo in 2009</a>, for "virtual writers world" that participants of this year's word fest might enjoy. cheers from the netherworld of pseudonyms.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Nov 05, 07:17pm

  @flawnt hey, i thought we had an agreement that you'd check with me before you post anything. you can't just turn on and off like a traffic light.

• 
  Finnegan Flawnt

  Nov 05, 07:19pm

  @marcus you're not the boss of me. and your metaphors suck. i bet your nanowrimo novel sucked, too.

• 
  David Ackley

  Nov 05, 08:51pm

  Hey, Flaunt, what's happenin', Man? I thought you was like defunct. Welcome back to the land of the alleged living...

• 
  David Ackley

  Nov 05, 08:53pm

  (Marcus, your dialogue w/ Flaunt recalls one of those old hilarious things between the ventriloquist and the supposed dummy where you began to go nuts wondering which one was moving the other one's mouth. Great stuff.)

• 
  David Ackley

  Nov 05, 08:54pm

  Flawnt, that is.

• 
  Bobbi Lurie

  Nov 07, 03:57am

  What exactly is it?

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