November Is The Cruelest Month

Each of the last several Novembers I've received emails from people asking me what I think of Nanowrimo and each year I respond the same way: I don't think, for aspiring novelists, that it's a particularly good use of your time. Invariably, people then write me back and call me a cock sucker and mention that it probably took me much longer than a month to write Fake Liar Cheat and that's not a very good book either. (Though it is a book that has stayed in print going on seven years, which says something.) In fact, the first time I read my name in The Elegant Variation was three years ago this week, when Mark Sarvas called me a killjoy and noted that I might be a wee bit self important for a column I wrote about Nanowrimo in the Las Vegas Mercury. Since I'm actually having lunch with Mark today and since I received not one but three emails from people asking me about Nanowrimo yesterday, I thought I'd reach back into the vault and pull out my old column and put it here in hopes of generating as much hate mail as possible from people currently 25K words into their projects. Here it is after the jump.

(This originally appeared in the Las Vegas Mercury -- November, 2003)

November is National Novel Writing Month, or, as it has become known in the circles of black-clad artists hunkered over their laptops and steaming mugs of coffee, NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNoWriMo is for a writer to compose a 50,000-word novel in the space of 30 days, the results tracked and quantified by the NaNoWriMo website. Each year around this time I am confronted by friends, students and various Internet stalkers who've decided to embark on this course of action and would like my opinion on their work. I usually beg off by citing time demands, and, when that fails, the tried-and-true response of "I'm too busy working on my own novel."

The truth of the matter is, I think it's a bad idea in a general way--you spend 30 days writing crap, as the website advises you probably will, you may well train yourself to accept crap as your standard. And in particular, I find it somewhat insulting that everyone thinks they can write a novel simply because they have the will to do it. Writing is one of the few professions that people off the street feel they can accomplish with little or no training, or talent, in advance--whereas one probably wouldn't attempt brain surgery without first figuring out how to perform a simple stitch job. In my capacity as a writing teacher, I encounter a lot of bad writing that can be boiled down to a fundamental lack in some regard--the person doesn't read much fiction, the person doesn't have a general sense of what makes drama, the person can't replicate the logic of other humans, thus, all of their characters are flat and cliché--and in many ways that's all fixable, or at least can be helped, by executing two simple exercises:

1. Read more.

2. Write more, but smaller: a poem, to a story, to a novel.

Trying to write a novel in a month prepares you for failure, at least in my not-so-humble opinion. I gave myself a year to write my first novel and you know what? It still, for the most part, sucked. Oh, there are some things in there that I still like, and it bought me a house and gave me a career, but every time I walk into Barnes & Noble it's sitting there like a perpetual first date gone wrong: Watch as Tod spits his food on his date! Marvel at how Tod fumbles with the bra strap! Wonder at the benign evil that is Tod's terrible ending and the striking disappearance of one main character because Tod couldn't quite figure out what to do with her for the nonexistent middle! Exalt!

What I learned from writing that book for a year and from my eventual dissatisfaction with the end product was that there is no ticking clock on creativity. A scene is done when it is done. A book is done when it is done, and then done again, and then perfected and worked on some more. When I wrote my next book, I spent 18 months getting it to where I thought I could sell it, and then, after selling it, I wrote 50 new pages and tweaked what I had before and, in the end, I was very happy. It took me two full years to write my current book, and I'm still not sure it's really done. Of course, you can do all that with the book you write in a month as well, but instead of plastic surgery to improve appearance, it will more likely be battlefield triage.

On the NaNoWriMo site, a question is posed: Why? The answer provided is fairly simple: "The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from your novel at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work." While this is funny--and for the most part precisely why most novelists are novelists anyway--it also augurs a larger issue: For the people who truly want to be professional writers, shouldn't you constantly be obsessing over quality? To conceal the artist and reveal the art is art's aim, as a famous dead person once said. Whither crap, then?

Writing a novel isn't a terribly fun task. It requires of a person the steadfast desire to live in their head for hours on end, eschewing the normal tidal flow of life in order to fashion a fake world for another person to read so that they can avoid their own lives. It takes care and concern to create because, in the end, the words belong not just to the writer but to the reader. It's a relationship that is a tenuous bond at best and, when entered into lightly, can be fraught with disappointment. Can you write a book in 30 days? Probably. Can you write a novel in 30 days? I say, why would you try?

Comments

[Lindsay]

I understand and to an extent agree with your concerns about Nano getting people used to producing crap. But honestly I'd say that, and the fact that inevitably Nano is going to suck in a lot of people who are shitty writers, are irrelevent.

First of all, I'm sure you realize the internet is FULL of shitty writers who think they can write but are sadly mistaken. Nano isn't creating them, although it may be giving them an outlet; but who really cares? It's not like Nano is rewarding them with publishing deals or something. Nano may not help them become better writers, but I don't think it's really harming them or harming the world.

I have a lot of friends doing Nano, and for all of them it seems to be primarily a personal goal- the "public" aspect of it is mostly a way for them to feel accountable. Because ultimately, the reason most of these people get into Nano isn't because they think it will catapult them to novel-writing success...it's because they love to write, and they find it hard to sit down and *work*, which they know is what writing something decent requires. Nano is a way of setting a goal- and for most of the people I know, it's less about ending up with a finished, polished product (because they know they won't) and more about putting themselves in a frame of mind where they sit down every single day for a month and work on a writing project.

I know "people I know" is hardly a scientific sampling from the population of people doing Nano, but I still feel that these people are representative of most people who participate; or at least the people at whom Nano is directed. They know at least something about the craft (and many of them are quite good; previous publication or full-time devotion to the career may be measures of professional experience, but are not measures of talent or ability). They know that much of what they're going to produce is crap, and that even if they were to end up with a "complete" novel, it would require substantial editing and rewriting to be up to their own standard of excellence, much less anyone else's. But for a lot of people, most of whom have other jobs and commitments, the important thing isn't so much what they end up with, it's the fact that they are writing.

If I were to participate in Nano, that would be my primary concern; and I would hope that it would help me develop a habit of sitting down and writing every day...something which I've been told by many an instructor and writer is vital if you intend to eventually produce something worth reading.

[Mark]

I can only pass a long a couple of interesting points I've picked up over the years.

There are plenty of people who pursue creative interests for their own sake, without a thought of getting paid for their work. You wouldn't say that the weekend painter, or sculptor, or other hobbyist was wasting their time. There's something to be said for personal growth and fulfillment, and for the idea (not mine) that you don't think of what to write, you write to find out what you think.

Second, wasn't it James Michener who said that he wasn't much of a writer but he was a world-class rewriter? The point being that if you're obsessing over quality during the first draft, you're never going to finish the first draft. You can't function creatively and critically at the same time. That's like trying to clean up a mess you're still making.

Finally, on a minor point, I'm intrigued by the notion that a successful novel can give you a career. Don't you have to earn that with every new book? Or is there some kind of authorial tenure program I haven't heard about?

[Sue Trowbridge]

I love the fact that one of the blogs I read, Foma, started
Just Read More Novels Month in response to NaNoWriMo.

[HawkOwl]

Realistically, I think if you were to look at the all the novels that get produced in 2+ years, versus all the novels that get produced during NaNoWriMo, you would find the former to be every bit as shitty as the latter. They just don't form a club to talk about it. Most people suck at writing, whether they do it slow or fast.

[yellojkt]

I try to be a little more bemused when I run into NaNoWriMos. It's more like a silly challenge to them akin to running in a 10k charity run or losing 10 pounds. It keeps people happy.

That said, we need quality readers more than self-delusional writers. Thanks for the JuReMoNo plug, Sue.

[Janet]

I was a NaNo participant this year and I'm very glad that I was. I had no illusions going in and I knew precisely what I wanted to get out of it - a kick in the butt. I'd been attempting for some time to write a novel, but I would fuss endlessly over the exact words, polishing and re-reading and re-writing. If I got 1000 words written in a month, I was lucky.

What NaNo has taught me is how to write a first draft, how much I needed to learn about plotting, how much I needed to learn, period; none of which I would have learned endlessly repolishing my little pearls.

Did I finish my novel? No. Did I write 50k? Not even. But I wrote almost 35k over the month, and discovered how writing a single chapter can call several others into existence, the fact that I should probably have an outline before I start the next novel, and that in spite of everything, I might actually be able to produce something readable and even sellable. Oh, and that watching a graph tick up day after day is a great motivator - so much so I've made my own just for the joy of looking at the curve climb. Whatever helps. The whole experience was well worth the effort.

Please forgive me if this comment isn't perfectly polished. It's a first draft... ;o)