Why it's Okay to say "Na-NO, Wri-Mo!"

It's that month again. The one that comes around every year and messes with the brains of writers.

I'm talking of course, about NaNoWriMo.

Like teenagers in a How Cool Are You Competition, writers are asking other writers all over the Interwebbyworld "Are you doing it? Have you done it before? Did you get to third base last time? D'you think you'll get there this time?"

So, with that in mind, let's get this out of the way right here, right now... if you're 'doing it' this year - well done you. No seriously - and sincerely - it's a massive thing to undertake, and having the danglies to do so, even if you don't expect to succeed - in fact, especially if you don't expect to succeed - says a lot about your determination and strength of character. And it gets you writing like a thing possessed for a whole month, so yaay for anything that gets people passionate about writing! For a whole thirty days of a randomly-chosen month...

(Dammit, I nearly made it to the end without any hint of snark... I was soooo close.... )

Sorry. I have certain feelings about NaNoWriMo. Y'see, for me it's like having a delicious but huge chocolate cake, and being told that the whole darn thing is for you - yes Preciousss, only you! - but you only have this teeny-weeny time period to eat the entire thing. Now I love me a bit of chocolate cake as much as the next chocolate addict... but what I don't like is being given ludicrous conditions for eating that cake. Especially when the reasons for those ludicrous conditions arose as a result of some random somewhere decreeing "It will be done this way, because that's where my Pin of YOLO landed when I covered my eyes and stuck the point into my Page of Car-azy Rules!"

Thanks for the lovely chocolate cake - much appreciated, believe me - but I will eat it when, where and how I want to - and in a way that doesn't end in me being violently sick and hating chocolate cake for... I dunno, a very long time. Like maybe even weeks.

Not only that, but I watch some ( not all - but definitely some) of the other competitors in this cake-gobbling competition and... well, they make me sad. They take that chocolate cake and they go "Yeah! I'm-a gonna do this!" (probably in a Mr. T-type voice.) And then they go "nom-nom-nom-nom-nom" and succeed in eating the entire cake. And then they are stratospherically pleased with themselves, because it's the only time they ever eat chocolate cake at all, never mind this much in one go. They have basically done a Bear Grylls with the chocolate cake challenge, i.e. done it purely for the sake of being able to tick it off some mental list of Things I Must Do To Be Totally Awesome, rather than for any love of chocolate cake itself.

Which means that, once it's done... well, that's it. No reason to eat chocolate cake again now unless... oh, I dunno, maybe I'll do it again next year, just to maintain my awesome, y'know? But no, not as a regular thing. Why would I  - what's so awesome about eating chocolate cake normally, in smaller, non-awesome quantities, all throughout the year? Pffft, that's for losers!

Some of these Bear Grylls-cake-scoffers take the level of self-congratulation a step further. So impressed are they at the phenomenal amount of cake they managed to ingest in such a short period of time that they decide the world should see that cake for themselves - like, really see it, and right now, before their guts have had time to extract all the goodness from it and decide if it was a healthy, nutritious cake or not. So they barf it all right back up again, in a nasty, slimy pile and cry "Look! Look at what I just did! Behold its awesomeness - bet you couldn't produce anything like that!" And then they get really, really cross with anyone who points out - however tactfully - that it's just a pile of cake-sick. "What the hell do you know, lightweight? D'you know how long it took me to make that? I'll tell you - hardly any time at all! Because I made it in NaNoWriMo 'cos I'm that awesome!"

These are the type of NaNoWriMo-ers that make me feel sad. They're otherwise known as - perhaps unkindly, perhaps not - 'wannabe writers.'

You can spot them a mile off. They talk abut NaNoWriMo as being their 'chance,' their 'opportunity' even their 'letter of permission' to 'finally' write that novel. As if all the mysterious embargoes that were somehow preventing them from writing it in any of the other eleven months of the year are suddenly magically lifted just for November because... um, somebody somewhere said so, and lots of people agreed.

So, when November the first cracks open, they 'know' they've got the next thirty days to be awesome writers. Thirty days of wearing the ball-gown and dancing with prince before - bong! The clock chimes midnight and they turn back into pumpkins again. Those thirty days must seem like precious jewels of time to those writers, and the pressure to use them wisely and come up with the goods must weigh heavily.  Because remember, this is their one chance to finally write that novel...

Sadly, these are the writers that are least likely to know the cold, cruel truth about NaNoWriMo - and probably wouldn't want to believe it even if you told them, because it destroys the metaphorical summit they're heading for in their mind.

You CAN'T finish a novel in thirty days.

You can certainly write 50,000 words in thirty days, as per the NaNoWriMo brief. But calling those 50,000 words a completed, publishable novel is like calling a dead cow a T-Bone steak. There's a heck'a-load of other processes gotta happen before you can serve that thing up for public consumption, and that can take anything from weeks to months - maybe even years. Or maybe even... never. Because, even after lavishing all the time and love in the world on it, it may still just... y'know, not be good enough to publish. At all. Ever.

Seasoned writers know this, of course. They know all about rewrites and multiple drafts and beta readers - and rejections and then more rewrites... They're also the ones who don't wait for each November to rock around before they start word-painting. They're more likely to take NaNoWriMo for what it really is; a jolly game to get writers in the mood for barfing up a first draft as quickly and crazily as they can. It's a calendar-based motivational tool, nothing more.

So if you have 'writer-friends' in your life who try to nag you into doing NaNoWriMo, or berate you for 'wimping out' of doing it year after year... maybe it's because you're already writing stuff all the time instead of just waiting for November. And y'know what? If you are, it doesn't even matter if you're not hitting the magic word-count of 1,667 a day. You're proving you're in it for the long haul - which is what you need for writing anything worth publishing. There's a reason the tortoise won the race and not the hare.

That's why I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'm gonna be too busy writing.

Going Through The NaNoWriMo-tions

Yep, it's That Time of The Year again. Writers and would-be writers across the world are sharpening their pencils and clearing some space on their hard drives for the literary stress-fest challenge that is NaNoWriMo. Flippin' heck, a year goes fast!

Some writers look forward to it all year. For them, it's like the Writers' Olympics - a chance to flex their muscles and show off their already-well-honed skills of speed, dexterity and stamina in all their glory. Others view it as the Kick Up The Bum They Need, so they can finally stop dreaming about becoming a writer, put their money where their mouth is and actually write that novel they've always dreamed of writing, dammit. Some don't care if they don't meet the 50,000 word target by the deadline - the point is just to write and have fun doing it. Others take it deadly seriously - for them, failure is not an option.

And then there's the folks like me. At least, I'm assuming I'm not the only writer on Planet Earth who feels this way.

The minute the word NaNoWriMo starts popping up everywhere, I'm that person who dips her head down and tries to disappear into the wallpaper. Don't get me wrong - I love the idea of it. If it gets people writing who would otherwise not have the courage or motivation to write I'm all for waving my pom-poms at that ball game. Just so long as I can do it quietly and discreetly, without anyone asking "So, are you doing it too then?"

Because that's where it gets awkward. 50,000 words, in one month? I already know I'd fail at that, thanks. I get two hours a day at the most for writing and I'm - well, just not that fast at transferring my brain contents from their squishy home to the digital page. And that's been my reasoning for not doing NaNoWriMo for... probably since forever. Is there any point in setting yourself a challenge you are almost 100% certain to fail, other than for the purpose of kicking yourself when you're already, if not down, at least not that far up?

Besides, for the past two years I've had another excuse reason for not NaNoWri-Mo-ing; I'm concentrating on Redemption, and trying (and probably failing) to write 50,000 words of another, completely different novel will set my progress back - and maybe even cause me to lose focus on Redemption completely. I've come this far with it, and I intend to see it through, no matter what.

But something weird's happened to me this year. I've found myself thinking things like "Maybe I could give it a go..." "It wouldn't matter that much if I didn't make the 50,000 word target..." and even "Maybe a bit of freewheeling-down-the-hill-with-no-brakes-style writing is just what I need to get my mojo back while I'm thrashing my way through The Difficult Middle Phase of Redemption..." In other words, I think I may be, kind of... warming to the idea.

Of course, the longer I leave it to make my mind up, the more failing to meet the 50,000 word target becomes a given; it's November 2nd now, so I've lost two days of potential writing time before I even start. But since I've made peace with that already, perhaps I can tweak this whole NaNoWriMo thing a little more. I've got lots of story ideas tumbling around in my head right now, and I'm going to have to write them down at some point anyway...

So, for those of you like me, who find the official NaNoWriMo goals a tad too intimidating, here is my proposed 'lite' version:

To write 10,000 words a week of anything creative during the month of November.

- This includes (but is not limited to); novels, novellas and short stories - and ideas, character profiles and outlines for any of the former, scripts, poems, lyrics, comic strips, blog posts, free-writing exercises and (non-work-related) journal entries.

- This does not include; letters and emails, comments left on forum messageboards, the blog posts of others or social media sites, forms and questionnaires (both in paper form and online) shopping lists, to-do lists and post-it note messages to friends and family.

Personally, I may well fail at this too. But no matter - what's important is the process of freeing up those brain cogs and grinding the rust offa them. And if it goes well, I might continue the regime for the next month - and the next, and the next. 10,000 words a month every month - of anything creative. Let's see if that helps me get through the Difficult Middle Phase!

What are you doing for NaNoWriMo-vember? Are you embracing it - or avoiding it? How does it normally go for you? I'd love to know.

The Second Draft: It's Just The One After The First

I learned a valuable lesson this week - and it's all thanks to Chuck Wendig (whose latest novel, Under The Empryean Sky is out now. Of course I'm going to inform you of that - and not just because I'm grateful, but because I also happen to think it's a ruddy marvellous book, so there.)

As you may have noticed in my previous posts, I have whinged about this Draft Two of my novel-in-progress The Renegades taking much longer and seeming to be much harder than Draft One... ooh, maybe several gazillion times. Anyone still in possession of their World's Smallest Violin has probably long given up on the idea of just playing it at me and moved on to fantasies of smashing it over my whiny little head.

*Shrugs.* Sorr-ee. I'll stop now.

No seriously, I will. I'm sure it was annoying - and now that I've made this amazing little leap I shouldn't need to do it anymore. Much. No - at all, honest! Because now I see why my Draft Two was causing me so much angst - and how changing my attitude to it, even in these last couple of days, has helped me get my Renegades mojo back again.

It started when I wrote my previous post about NaNoWriMo. I believe there was this little statement I made along the lines of 600 words a day being a really productive writing sesh for me, yeah? Well, I'm doing my embarrassed face right now as I admit that was a massive lie.

I get two hours of 'writing time' a day in my life, so I doubt I'm ever gonna be one of those writers who can churn out two novels a year - but there was a time when 600 words a day would've been a piece of cake for me. (Mmmm.... cake...) But I haven't been writing anywhere near 600 words a day for... urrgh, at least a month now. I've been squeaking 300,  maybe 400 at very best  - and even then, only with the aid of PURELY MEDICINAL chocolate supplements. Fun and tasty as that is, I'm not sure chomping my way to Type II Diabetes is a great strategy for raising this novel into a functional, publishable grown-up, so I knew I needed to fix my shizzle. But how?

And then I read Chuck Wendig's blog, where he stated that it took him five years to write his first novel, 'Blackbirds.' Well, heck - if a real, properly famous and successful author is allowed to take five years to write his baby, then surely that means a little ol' 'who?' like me can take that long as well! I'm only on Month 20 since the entire Renegades Process began, so I'm kind of on schedule, if you look at it that way...

Then another thing occurred to me. If he really spent five years on it, then it can't have just been on Draft One, Draft Two and then a final spit and polish for grammar and typos. In other words, he probably had more than just a couple of gos at getting the story part right, before he even got as far as moving on to the technical bits.

And that's why I was struggling so much with my Draft Two!

All this time, I'd been thinking of Draft Two as my final chance to get the story right. After this, all subsequent edits would be purely for trimming and polishing the language and sorting out inconsistencies and the aforementioned grammar and typo bombs. Which meant I was putting my Editor Hat on - and an awful lot of pressure on myself - every time I sat down to work; "This aint no disco - this is Draft Two, Cupcake! (Mmmm... cupcake...) So every word you hammer out had better be freakin' good, if you don't want to prove to the whole world that you're not a good a writer as you like to think you are..!"

I'd lost that mindset of "just write - you can go back and fix it later" and gone headlong into "this has to be right now!" But the truth is, I'm still putting the story together in many areas; now I know all of it, I've realised there are bits in Draft One that don't need to be there, and important stuff missing that definitely does. I can't expect to fix all of that and have it all flow perfectly, first time, as well. So I'm going to need to do a Draft Three for that. And maybe a Draft Four... and Five...

And if I do...*fanfare*... IT DOESN'T MATTER!

It sounds so simple when it's written down, in actual words. But it's taken me a while to see it. So, if there needs to be a Draft Three, and Four, and Eleventy-One... so be it. No-one dies if I cock it up on Draft Two; I just get another go at putting it right. Which feels... kind of good, actually. Yeah.

So if you'll excuse me - I got some more Draft two to write. It'll probably be crappy, but I'm down with that now...

Saying Nah-Nah-No-No to NaNoWriMo.

So... NaNoWriMo is upon us again!

And yes, you are correct in concluding - simply from the fact this post dates from 4 days into the event itself - that I am not partaking. But I'm cheering all you guys on who are, rest assured. Go team! and all that.

It's a fabulous idea, of course. The bestest kick up the backside an aspiring writer could have, with the added benefit of instant membership to a club of like-minded masochists comrades-in-arms for support. For many it provides the motivation for writing that novel that would otherwise never be written - and I'll admit it, I have an admiration bordering on awe for those people that actually complete the challenge. Fifty thousand words in one month? You guys rock. Seriously.

But NaNoWriMo is not for everyone. I know this because, for this year at least, I myself am very much not one of those everyone, even if I wanted to be (and oh! I so want to be..!) I could offer up the usual excuse - I'm a mum who has to juggle looking after a lively kid and running a house with my writing, blah blah, etc. etc, and yeah, I get it so put away that teeny-tiny violin RIGHT NOW...

But that, of course, is complete baloney and an insult to those who hold down full-time jobs AND have kids AND still manage to churn out best-selling novels by the bucketload.

No, the real reason I would fail at NaNoWriMo this year is because I am in the wrong place, at the wrong stage, to have any hope of achieving the goal. As anyone who has read this blog more than once will know, I am currently in the Draft Two stage of writing my novel The Renegades. I love this book like a sibling, i.e. it frequently drives me nuts and makes me want to pull its hair when it annoys me, but I am fiercely loyal to it because I believe I need to write it even if it ends up never being published. So I am not about to abandon it for another story, even for a month.

I did the maths (well, okay - I got a calculator to do it for me) and it soon became clear that, in order to complete the challenge of fifty thousand words in thirty days, I would need to write at least 1,667 words a day (I rounded that up because I'm not sure how you'd write .6-recurring of a word, but anyway...) And that's if I wrote every single day; if I decided to do the standard 'working week' thing of five days a week and two days off, that word count goes up to 2,381 words a day. On a Draft Two manuscript.

That's never gonna happen for me. At the moment, 600 words a day is me on fire. It's not because I'm lazy, or a crappy writer (well I certainly hope it's not the last one...) it's simply because I'm spending more time unpicking and rebuilding what I've already written to make it better - and that's harder and more time-consuming. No free-wheeling, brain-candy-dumping in that process...

And that's the key to succeeding at NaNoWriMo; having the freedom to write whatever crazy-ass stuff comes pouring out of your noggin. When you don't have to care about what you're slamming down on the page because, hey, you can fix it all later, you can party on through the alcoholically-liberated moonings and dodgy one-night-stands that constitute the average Pantser Draft One novel. After all, you get the prize just for writing those fifty thousand words; no-one has to actually read them as well.

(But even if you do end up writing fifty thousand words of utter pants at the end of the thirty days, you still rock. I wouldn't dream of taking that away from you, never fear.)

Some people like the ceremony of NaNoWriMo. Perhaps there's a part of them, deep down inside, that feels like they need... I don't know, permission to knuckle down and all-out focus on Getting A Novel Written. Maybe they don't have partners, friends and family who are supportive of their writing ambitions, and so they feel guilty about indulging in it - as if it's little more than a slightly nerdy hobby to be confined to snatched moments of free time. To do it with any degree of conviction at any other time feels self-indulgent, maybe even (shudder) selfish - but hey, it's November, so for this month being crazy-OCD-dedicated to that hobby that everyone sniggers at is officially allowed... the calendar says so. Well then - hell yeah, let's do this!

For those people, NaNoWriMo is a wonderful thing, and I'm glad it exists if only for them - although I can't help wishing I could just wave a magic wand instead, and give them the power to claim their writing time for themselves, all year round, without feeling guilt or shame. (If this person is you, hear this: you deserve that time, it's yours and you've earned it. CLAIM IT!) Or maybe getting a proper, formal kick up the writing jacksie that comes bang on schedule every year is a much better motivator for others than trying to maintain it all year round at a lower intensity. I'm glad NaNoWriMo exists for those people too. 

I wish you all the very best of luck if you are partaking - go nuts, enjoy the ride. But I will be cheerleading from the sidelines, if that's alright with you. I can't bring myself to cheat on The Renegades with some flighty new November fling - or, alternatively, to give her a month's worth of lousy lovin' just to rack up the number of times we've Done It. (That may well be the weirdest analogy I've ever used to make a point... but hey...)

Whether you write slow or fast, a trickle all year or a massive burst every November... enjoy it and claim it. It's yours. Do it.

Write! Go!