NaNoWriMo: Do You Do NaNo? – By Casey Quinn
Published By Casey Quinn • Nov 9th, 2008 • Category: Casey's CornerFor many writers the month of November is a time spent glued to their laptops and coffee mugs as they attempt to knock out 50,000 words in 30 days. For many NaNoWriMo is a yearly personal journey to see if as a writer they can push themselves to the limit. As this is not only my first year trying NaNo myself but also my first attempt at a novel, I am in awe at the word count and production from some of the other writers I know who are participating.
The goal of NaNo is to write. Write what? Well, that is where it gets gray when it comes to some of the people I have spoken with on the topic. For many, writing 50,000 words is their goal and personal accomplishment. These words don’t really resemble a novel or tell a story and yet they don’t care. Setting a goal and reaching it is satisfaction enough. For me, I am trying to write a first draft of a novel that I hope to be able to shop some day to a publisher. It was surprising to me to find so many people don’t intend on actually DOING anything with their NaNo novel other then upload it to the site to say they are a winner.
Now when I first thought about participating, my normal word count was less than 1000 words a day and I would be liar if I said I actually wrote 5 days a week let alone 7. To accomplish 50K words in 30 days required roughly 1600 words a day. Every day. No breaks. Now I was curious, how many words did Hemmingway write in a day, I mean he is one of the greatest writers of all time. When I found out he wrote between 500 to 1000 words a day I realized something. While my novel will have a first draft done by the end of the month I am going to be spending three times the normal length editing it as I am writing it to “get it done” instead of polishing as I go.
Perhaps if I did edit as I wrote I would never finish. I would convince myself this plot was horrible and flawed and gave up on the whole idea, I have done it before. So maybe that is the quality of NaNo to write a novel to get it done one way or another. Sure, it will take months and months to turn random words into a plausible plot but for me, it is always easier to tweak existing stuff then to build something from scratch.
Well, that is my logic for staying on and reaching 50K by the end of the month…. What’s yours?
About the Author
Casey Quinn
I’m doing nano too. i don’t care if i reach the 50k or not but at least i am writing each day just as you are. my viewis to write a novel and send send send.
godd article casey. beats me why people want to bother with all that hard work just to leave it gathering dust.
I never heard of that before! Since it’s November 9th I’ve got to get busy! ‘Bye.
Hey Grace,
Check out the website, many writers take part:
http://www.nanowrimo.org
Thanks, Casey. My first time hearing of it too! You rock.
Anything that keeps us writing, reading and in the game is fabulous. More power to you for climbing the high mountain.
Have partcipated in NaNoWriMo since 2005. I have yet to hit the 50,000 or even come close. But over the last few years, I’ve been writing more and more so this year, I’m almost at 30,000 and it’s about halfway through. My plan is to just write. Other than fixing spelling mistakes as I type, I don’t do much editing. I figure I want to finish the story, get to “The End” and then print it out and edit. I also have friends willing to edit and give me their opinions. My goal for this one is to get it published by next summer. It’s also written in a way, I could create a series which would be awesome in my eye! Thanks for the article!
Hey Pam,
Sounds like atleast this year you have the idea / plot to make it a novel length work, good luck!!
Good luck with your book! This year a bunch of us on the writing forum here worked together and sort of acted as a support group to push us to get our books done. Next year you should join too
About 9 days left depending on where you are in the world, hope everyone working on their novel hits “the end” if not, no worries, keep writing it and get it done in december, dont give up on your novel just because november is over!
I started to participate because I am horrible at writing without a deadline, but I am very behind at the moment I’ve pushed the deadline forward to 25th February 2009, to give me time to think about the plot some more.