Well it's snowing outside, I just finished all of my midterms, and I finally have my Halloween costume together. It must be the last week of October!
Ah, the final week of October. The week when people are finishing up with their planning and begin to hover on the NaNo site eagerly waiting for the clock to tick over to November. It gets me really excited to look down at the little counter at the bottom of the page and see that nearly 50,000 users are on the website at the same time as me.
Normally I would be among many sitting at their computers on Halloween night with cans of Mountain Dew piled up next to them while waiting for the race to begin on midnight. Unfortunately, Halloween is on a Monday this year, and I have a class at 8am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. So I either really stock up on the coffee over the weekend, or I just write it the next morning during the lecture. Since I usually sleep in that class anyway, I don't see how it would affect me beyond that.
Even then, I'm super excited for NaNoWriMo this year. Right when I came to college, I immediately began making friends who will also be doing it! Though my high school was huge, I seemed to be the only one in it that was doing NaNo. But now I get to do the word wars and writing sessions that everyone's always talking about. After a bit of snooping, I discovered that there will be several writing sessions at my school's cafe, which means that I'll be meeting even more people who understand my writing plight!
Which reminds me, this is also my first time doing NaNo without my parents or siblings around. My younger brother seemed to be the only one who understood the thrill of writing, and even tried to participate alongside me one year (bless his little nine-year-old heart). My sister didn't get it, but she was supportive of me in past years, even giving me a congratulations when I won last year. My parents, however, seemed to have gotten it in their heads that all NaNo does is kill grades. Even though my grades never changed at all in past years, they seemed to think that I had so much homework that I couldn't possibly have time for anything else. This weekend, I'll probably get a few texts from my mom reminding me not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year because I'm in college so I have no free time.
We'll see about that.
Showing posts with label Anti-Nano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Nano. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
NaNo Downers
Hello, Espea here. Every year, NaNoWriMo comes to sweep people like me off of their feet into a world of novel writing adventure. And by the 'like me' comment, I mean people who can't find time to write or just can't bring themselves to write down that awesome story idea in their head. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days and even if you lose, the experience changes you.
Along with a close-knit community ready to cheer you on if you get stuck, or begin to lose hope in yourself, there's a large group of naysayers that claim that NaNo is a waste of time. Noses in the air, they usually come around in October, though they have been coming earlier as of late. Usually professional writers or critics, they come and put down NaNo while promoting their own helpful books and contests to help you write. The arguments they use may look clever and convincing, but don't be fooled.
Argument #1: NaNoWriMo encourages bad writing.
I honestly don't know why they try to pass this off as a solid argument. They say that NaNoWriMo encourages people to write their horrid pieces of fiction and try to sell it off to publishers. Apparently publishers complain about getting a slew of terrible novels every December, but I wonder how many people actually are confident enough to send off their unedited novel straight to a publisher each year. And here's the shocker: Bad novels existed before NaNo!
The context of this argument is that the competitors are told to just write crap and that's a good thing. They say it can't improve writing. I say it can. Writing is the only way to improve your writing and that's not going to happen unless the writer is comfortable with the fact that not everything they write will be solid gold.
Argument #2: NaNoWriMo encourages quantity over quality.
NaNo doesn't want a good novel, it just wants a novel. That's eerily similar to what I wrote above. But then they go on to say how NaNo encourages underhanded word count tricks to pad the word count and that it doesn't improve one's writing skill at all. Actually, they would be surprised. Dirty word-count tricks like the one time I spent three pages on a fight between my main character and a bunny help me get to know my characters. Long plot line short, it was how he discovered he was part-dragon.
But what about tricks that don't require any extra writing at all, like the stuttering character? That character that I created just to pad the word-count with his stuttering dialogue wound up being promoted to secondary antagonist after he kidnapped the main character's brother.
The thing is, if the book slows down enough for the writer to resort to underhanded tricks, the characters get the hint and take control of the story.
Argument #3: People who don't write well shouldn't write.
Summed up for your pleasure. Not the exact words, but that's the vibe that I get from some people. A certain critic continually complained about seeing amateurs write or try to learn about writing. Because every great author just picked up a pen and wrote that masterpiece. She's a critic, so I imagine if everyone did as she told, then she would be out of a job. Don't say I didn't warn you as angry mobs of other unemployed critics come after you.
Also, believe it or not, there are beautiful books out there that can only be written if NaNo helps the author get through the "I don't want to ruin this idea by writing it" phase of their writing careers.
Argument #4: Nobody reads, so novel writing is useless.
Here's a fresh one (and I don't mean that ironically), but I don't agree with it. Not everyone who participates in NaNoWriMo is looking to get published (actually, most of them don't have this goal in mind). Everyone enjoys a good story, whether they are reading it, writing it, watching it, or preforming it. This may sound selfish, but NaNoWriMo is for the writer, not the reader. Who cares if nobody reads about Tavian and Aeon's adventures fighting off the steampunk villains? I'm happy to have gotten to know the characters and feel a sense of accomplishment in having a novel under my belt.
Argument #5: 50,000 words is not a real novel.
And we're back to the usual. 50,000 is impressive enough while still easily doable within a month. Besides, the novels usually expand by 10,000-50,000 words during the rewrite.
Argument #6: NaNoWriMo is a bad way to learn how to write.
This is usually stated right before the critic goes on to suggesting a list of books and classes that they were probably paid to promote. Reading aboout writing isn't how people should learn how to write well. They need to write to learn how to write well. And classes never worked for me, as I hate being told what to write. Essays are usually fine, it's the "Now we will work on describing. Write a page about a sock" that gets me.
And I think the best kind of character is the kind that does their own thing free of the author's control. This keeps them from turning into puppets on strings.
Not that this is going to make a huge difference. The only people who will read and comment will be people who agree with me (if I get any readers).
And I close with the statement that I'm just a poor, lowly college student who wants to study history, but I have more fun writing than naysayers who put down NaNo, because they take writing a little too seriously. Toodles!
Along with a close-knit community ready to cheer you on if you get stuck, or begin to lose hope in yourself, there's a large group of naysayers that claim that NaNo is a waste of time. Noses in the air, they usually come around in October, though they have been coming earlier as of late. Usually professional writers or critics, they come and put down NaNo while promoting their own helpful books and contests to help you write. The arguments they use may look clever and convincing, but don't be fooled.
Argument #1: NaNoWriMo encourages bad writing.
I honestly don't know why they try to pass this off as a solid argument. They say that NaNoWriMo encourages people to write their horrid pieces of fiction and try to sell it off to publishers. Apparently publishers complain about getting a slew of terrible novels every December, but I wonder how many people actually are confident enough to send off their unedited novel straight to a publisher each year. And here's the shocker: Bad novels existed before NaNo!
The context of this argument is that the competitors are told to just write crap and that's a good thing. They say it can't improve writing. I say it can. Writing is the only way to improve your writing and that's not going to happen unless the writer is comfortable with the fact that not everything they write will be solid gold.
Argument #2: NaNoWriMo encourages quantity over quality.
NaNo doesn't want a good novel, it just wants a novel. That's eerily similar to what I wrote above. But then they go on to say how NaNo encourages underhanded word count tricks to pad the word count and that it doesn't improve one's writing skill at all. Actually, they would be surprised. Dirty word-count tricks like the one time I spent three pages on a fight between my main character and a bunny help me get to know my characters. Long plot line short, it was how he discovered he was part-dragon.
But what about tricks that don't require any extra writing at all, like the stuttering character? That character that I created just to pad the word-count with his stuttering dialogue wound up being promoted to secondary antagonist after he kidnapped the main character's brother.
The thing is, if the book slows down enough for the writer to resort to underhanded tricks, the characters get the hint and take control of the story.
Argument #3: People who don't write well shouldn't write.
Summed up for your pleasure. Not the exact words, but that's the vibe that I get from some people. A certain critic continually complained about seeing amateurs write or try to learn about writing. Because every great author just picked up a pen and wrote that masterpiece. She's a critic, so I imagine if everyone did as she told, then she would be out of a job. Don't say I didn't warn you as angry mobs of other unemployed critics come after you.
Also, believe it or not, there are beautiful books out there that can only be written if NaNo helps the author get through the "I don't want to ruin this idea by writing it" phase of their writing careers.
Argument #4: Nobody reads, so novel writing is useless.
Here's a fresh one (and I don't mean that ironically), but I don't agree with it. Not everyone who participates in NaNoWriMo is looking to get published (actually, most of them don't have this goal in mind). Everyone enjoys a good story, whether they are reading it, writing it, watching it, or preforming it. This may sound selfish, but NaNoWriMo is for the writer, not the reader. Who cares if nobody reads about Tavian and Aeon's adventures fighting off the steampunk villains? I'm happy to have gotten to know the characters and feel a sense of accomplishment in having a novel under my belt.
Argument #5: 50,000 words is not a real novel.
And we're back to the usual. 50,000 is impressive enough while still easily doable within a month. Besides, the novels usually expand by 10,000-50,000 words during the rewrite.
Argument #6: NaNoWriMo is a bad way to learn how to write.
This is usually stated right before the critic goes on to suggesting a list of books and classes that they were probably paid to promote. Reading aboout writing isn't how people should learn how to write well. They need to write to learn how to write well. And classes never worked for me, as I hate being told what to write. Essays are usually fine, it's the "Now we will work on describing. Write a page about a sock" that gets me.
And I think the best kind of character is the kind that does their own thing free of the author's control. This keeps them from turning into puppets on strings.
Not that this is going to make a huge difference. The only people who will read and comment will be people who agree with me (if I get any readers).
And I close with the statement that I'm just a poor, lowly college student who wants to study history, but I have more fun writing than naysayers who put down NaNo, because they take writing a little too seriously. Toodles!
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