NaNoWriMo= National Bad Writing Month!
A lot of writers and bloggers seem to stress out over National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an internet challenge where aspiring authors attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
If participating writers don’t get to 50,000 words, they often feel defeated or dejected, but that’s not why I stay out of it. I can’t even say “NaNoWriMo,” much less complete it.
I write too slowly to even attempt the challenge. I can churn stuff out, but I can’t do a 50,000 word burst in a month. I pace myself so that I don’t burn out. I respect writers who attempt it, but I’m sure most of the writing that comes out of NaNoWriMo is pretty bad.
In the video below, I’m kind of blunt about what I think of NaNoWriMo. It’s not really a rant, but I speak my mind.
What do you think? Would you try to write 50,000 words in 30 days? If you’ve participated, what kind of writing did you produce?
Dysfunctional Literacy 
I have done so several times(6 or 7 this year). It’s not an internet challenge for me. We have a writers group that meets weekly year round and we all participate. Nothing I have produced in 30 days was ready for publication. But nothing I ever produce is ready for publication after the first draft. LOL. Nano is a quick way to get a first draft on paper. Teaches you to shut off your inner editor and just write. Then I edit.
Fastest Edit: I did once write something in November and publish it the following October.
6 or 7 times??????
At least you have more of a purpose than just seeing if you can write 50,000 words in a month. Plus, you published something you wrote.
But… 6 or 7 times??????
Sure. It’s great fun.
I have many, many reasons for NOT participating in NaNoWriMo… not the least of which is ‘Everyone need peer pressure to make them write alot’ just doesn’t work for me.
Haha! There’s a chance that the peer pressure would make me do the opposite of writing 50,000 words.
I might end up deleting 50,000 words that I’d previously written just out of spite. Then again, doing the opposite of what peer pressure expects is still being influenced by peer pressure and that’s not necessarily good either.
I guess it’s better to write something than not to write at all. There’s a lot of people, like me, who talk about being a writer. But really…aside from blogging, I haven’t done a real lot in the last year since I switched from being a journalist to a teacher.
Since you’re a teacher, maybe November isn’t the best month for NaNoWriMo.
Maybe June, July, or August would be better, unless you have to go to a bunch of summer inservices.
Long distance runners have a term for low quality work-outs: junk miles. The thing is, when one is building strength – miles count. In other words, if you are used to writing 1,000 words a week and are now writing 1,500 words a day, you are probably gaining writing strength even though what you are writing reads like garbage. However, if you are capable of writing a novel a year, writing one in a month might be a waste of time.
But to quote Joseph Stalin: quantity has a quality all its own.
Stalin? I wouldn’t want him anywhere near NaNoWriMo!
He’d make authors write a 50,000 word novel about how great he was, and the penalty for failure would be getting sent to the front unarmed.
Even worse, 50,000 words might not be enough for Stalin.