So, NaNoWriMo, Eh?

I have a lot of complicated feelings about NaNoWriMo.

First, a caveat: I have participated in NaNo more or less yearly since ... 2007, I think. So I'm a bit of a cagey vet at this point. And, yes, I have met the 50,000 word goal a few times, but I definitely have mixed feelings about the whole enterprise....

On one hand, writing is good (presuming one wants to write in the first place). Writing more words helps you become a better writer (although I'm going to parse this one out later). Secondly, nothing gets people together like a catchy acronym (abbreviation? whatever). Shit, dude, I suck at making friends. And NaNo is a nice yearly chance to meet some folks who definitively are into Writin' Words What Make a Story, which is common ground if nothing else. That connection can be invaluable to me--and, I'm guessing, to a bunch of other people who spend too much time writing alone in their respective caves.

But as much good as NaNo does, I find myself fairly ambivalent about the institution of NaNoWriMo itself. Bear with me here, but my theory--and I guess my contention--is that "NaNoing" has a different end state than "writing." When you're just writing, the general idea is "maybe finish the thing, hopefully get better." When you're NaNoing, the attitude can become "Write 50,000 words under any circumstances." So you get people saying things like "NEVER EDIT EVER" or to not worry about quality.

But like, humour me for a minute. Over my NaNo ... career, I guess you'd call it, I've written something like 400,000 words (ish). Now, if you looked at my "victory" years and did a cumulative word count, way more of that writing is weighted towards those earlier years from 2007-2010 . But if you asked me when I learned the most, then that answer is ... more complicated. Because honestly, in the first year? Maybe I learned nothing. Same in the second year.

But then I start showing my stuff to people and their response is a generally uninterested "Huh. Okay." And it maybe gets me thinking that my shit ain't that hot, so I go back in with an awareness I didn't have before: that when you're reading a story you don't really give a shit how fast it was written. Maybe, if I just focus on churning out words, I just kind of learn how to put 50,000 words down in order. Maybe I need to give a shit about what I was putting down, even if that meant, yes, I go back and edit during writing sessions.

Okay, to drop the conceit, scratch the maybes. All this happened. But on the other end of the spectrum, when I was paralyzed by the Mountainous Importance of the task set before me by my Calling, then I didn't learn neither jack nor shit on account of all the zero bits of writing I was doing.

You learn the most, I think, when you care enough to not vomit garbage, but not so much that you spend forever on the threshold. And I guess the reason why I love NaNo--and the reason that I'm wary of it--is that NaNo moves the needle more towards the former than the latter. I guess the trick (for me) is making sure that it doesn't go too far and become an exercise unto itself.

Look, friend, I have no idea who I'm writing this to (seriously, I don't; I'm not sure if imzy has a member directory for communities and honestly it feels douchey to check that kind of thing out). I don't have much in the way of pithy conclusions, but if I've figured anything out while suplexing my brain into the keyboard it's that I think NaNoWriMo can be good ... but because of the Wri part. Not, necessarily, the NaNo ... Mo.

(Nailed it.)