What I Learned from NaNoWriMo

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to encourage people to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

That translates to about 1,667 words per day - if you're diligent.

It also translates to AT LEAST 60 hours of active writing - and that's not counting the planning, preparation, and procrastination that goes into it.

The result is about 170 double-spaced pages - which is slightly shorter than the book Superfudge.

Oh, and most of what you write is complete and utter tripe.

So what's the point of doing NaNoWriMo?

EDUCATION.

Here's a quick list of what I learned:

1 - Writing is Hard Work

For me, this is actually a revelation. See, I studied writing in college, but I switched over to the Creative Writing emphasis from the Teaching emphasis because it was EASIER. Well, in the real world, it's not. Not really.

Like I said, it takes about two hours of work PER DAY to write effectively. That's two hours of work on top of the eight hours per day I put in at my day job - and, you know, there are just some days after work when I don't WANT to do any extra work. In those days, writing kind got shoved off to the side.

2 - There is Time for Everything

Probably the best lesson I learned, actually, is that I have time to write, if I make it a priority. During the month of November, I wrote just over 50,000 words. I also put in my regular 40 hours a week at work (and, no, I actually DIDN'T do any of my writing at work), prepared lessons for the Sunday School class I teach, continued to participate in workshops and performances for the Jesters Royale, updated my blog regularly, spent quality time with the family, hung out with friends... heck, I even got to play my video games when I really felt like vegging.

The point is, I probably have an extra 2 hours per day MOST days that I didn't do anything else productive with, so I have the time, if I choose to spend it.

The only thing I didn't really have time to do is clean my apartment. I've got, like, ten empty ice-cream cartons that really ought to be thrown out soon.

3 - No Battle Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy

In this case, the enemy is the writing itself, I guess. The days leading up to November 1, I sat down and wrote an elaborate (for me) outline of everything I wanted to cover in my novel. I made a list of all the characters I wanted to include, and I had all the plot twists carefully placed.

Then I sat down to write, and I wound up hating almost all of it.

Characters I chose to focus on never quite developed the way I wanted them to, and plot inconsistencies busted out all over like June (whatever that means - I never thought June was all that "busty"). I wrote a lot of scenes and stories I never planned to write, and, in the end, I decided that the characters I've written wouldn't really participate in the plot I'd planned. So, in revision, I'ma change the whole thing.

I'm glad I used an outline, but I don't feel like I need to stick to it religiously.

4 - There is a Writing Process - and it Works

I hear people say "Trust the process" all the time. Ideas come while you write, good characters write themselves, narratives evolve organically through the natural process of sitting down at the keyboard and forcing yourself to work. Turns out all this is true.

I wound up changing who my favorite character was about three times over the course of writing this story - to the point that, when I revise, I'm going to focus on a completely different character than the one I chose to be my protagonist and completely cut two other characters out simply because they wound up not fitting in to the story I'd created (see Lesson #3).

5 - Genius isn't Accidental

I long believed that all those great works of literature - stories by Dickens, Twain, Hemingway, and other stuffy people - were great completely by accident. After all, there is NO WAY an author could really depend on his or her readers understanding all those allusions and metaphors, right? They HAVE to be there by coincidence.

Turns out that I was wrong. I noticed connections and themes popping up in my head as I wrote my story - which, by the way, is FAR from genius at this point. Working in all of the brilliant ideas I got while writing will take me months, possibly years, of revising. I doubt my little story will ever be as influential or "literary" as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I now have greater respect for those fantastic works of literature and the authors who made them genius.

6 - Writing is Fun

Several times, over the course of the month of November, I got caught up in writing some insane tangent that I hadn't planned on writing that so excited me I called up a friend afterward to brag about it. I haven't written prose seriously in years - and I LOVED it.

So, yeah, it's hard work, time-consuming, a bit intimidating... but, if I really want to be a novelist, it's completely possible and TOTALLY worth the effort.