NaNoWriMo 2020

“The artist is not expressing himself. He is discovering himself.” Steven Pressfield

It’s National Novel Writing Month, and I’m participating. (You can find me here, if you’re participating.) 

I have such a soft spot for NaNoWriMo.

I did it four times before I really showed anyone anything I wrote. It helped me to figure out how to get words down from my brain into solid form. It also taught me how to keep going and how to finish a book.

Those four early novels are complete messes that won’t see the light of day. But they were invaluable because they taught me so very, very much.

In case you’re not familiar with it, the original concept of National Novel Writing Month is to write a new, 50,000-word novel entirely in the month of November. (The founder chose November because it’s a month when you want to stay inside generally and chose 50,000 words by estimating the word count of Brave New World.)

The idea has been expanded on so that you can basically do whatever you want. Aspiring writers of whatever age (including very young students) can write whatever amount of words they want in whatever month they want. We can add on to existing work. And it doesn’t have to be fiction—we can write whatever kind of work we want.

So, it’s perfectly reasonable to add on to an existing project. Or to have a word count goal less (or more) than 50,000 words.

Right now, I have plenty of editing and revising to do on plenty of projects, and logically, it’s not a great time to start a new book. I could use NaNoWriMo to add to an existing book that needs to be finished.

But the years I’ve tried to shape a novel into, uh, shape, haven’t been satisfying. It didn’t work for me.

And the years I’ve skipped NaNoWriMo, I’ve been sad.

So, even though the last thing I need right now is to start a new novel, I’m writing a new novel.

In the midst of the six-plus others I have going on.

And it’s making me so very, very happy.

I’m getting back to my roots. With every ugly word, every cringeworthy line, every part that I think—I need to go back and revise that—I’m creating something new.

Something for me.

Perhaps, at some point, it could be something for you, too.

I’m not going to worry about that right now, though.

Nano is messy and amateurish. It’s there to just get the words down.

The concept has been criticized for letting people think they can be novelists. But I think they can be.

With editing, sure.

“A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.” – Kenneth Tynan.

NaNoWriMo is for those of us who are driving the car.

Many of us have books in us, and Nano gets them out.

And what does it feel like to be in the car? To be writing something entirely new?

Scary.

I’m writing a book that’s barely a concept. I have a mood. Two characters. A style I love. Inspiration I’m passionate about. And a very vague idea of how it will all fit together.

I’m taking a step into the unknown.

I think I need to do this on a soul-level.

All year (and previously), I’ve spent a lot of time when I write trying to put into play all of the knowledge I’ve gained over the five years of writing. I know more about grammar and sentence structure. About plot and character development. About concepts and ideas.

I’m better educated about what makes a good novel and what makes one bad.

But fuck it.

I just want to write something and not worry about if it’s any good.

So, that’s what I’m using NaNoWriMo for.

To write for me.

Of course, I care very much about whether my final products are any good. I want them to be perfect. (They can’t be.) I want them to matter. (They will matter to some. To others, they won’t.)

But I’m hoping Nano shakes me up a bit. Lets me play. Lets me figure out what it is I really want to do.

(Hint: It’s have fun writing.)

So, I’m taking this year’s NaNoWriMo very seriously in a way—and not seriously at all in another sense. I’m embracing the spirit of “show up and see what happens.” All I want to do is dive into these characters—I’ve given them a bunch of shit to work through—in a setting I adore—and figure out what’s going to happen.

And it makes me smile.

I don’t worry about quality. Just quantity. I just get the words down. I just do it.

Editing comes later. Criticism comes later.

I’m suspicious that like Steven Pressfield says, I’m going to discover what it’s all about at some point before It’s done.