Notes on NaNoWriMo

That’s the acronym for National Novel Writing Month. The goal? “a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.” 

According to Chuck Wendig, this computes to “at least 1,666 words per day over the 30 day period.” And he notes that lots of those words won’t be good, and that a more realistic word count for a novel is 70,000. So what’s the value of this?

Tip: Most writers have bad habits. And most writers benefit from identifying and breaking them.

The majority of writers are serious enough and smart enough to know that novel writing is rarely easy or lucrative. Perhaps they’ve already heard the Ernest Hemingway quote: “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”

If someone clever and conscientious has critiqued a novelist, then he or she has bravely or miserably learned the truth that “Writing is easy to do, but hard to master.” —  Jeff Goins, “5 Hard Truths about Writing” 

And the solution to “Writing a good book, compared to a bad one, involves one thing. Work.” —Jeff Berkun, “How to Write a Book—the Short Honest Truth”

How does this relate to NaNoWriMo, which involves piling up the words, then revising those words you piled up? Depending on your schedule, writing process, and comfort level, this month offers an opportunity to diagnose habits and decide might change. Recognize any of these?

• I’m planning. That’s writing.
• I'm scheduling when I'll write. That’s writing.
• I’m depressed; I can’t write.
• I’m ecstatic; I can’t write.
• I only have two and one-half hours, so there’s no point starting.
• I can only write if nothing distracts me.
• I promised I’d write for ninety minutes and I’m already five over. I get to stop.
• I can only write when I’m inspired.
• I can only write when I know exactly where the scene is going.
• I can only write under ideal conditions.

Really? Really? In Marge Piercy’s superb poem, “For the Young Who Want to,” she reminds us that

The real writer is one

who really writes. Talent

is an invention like phlogiston

after the fact of fire.

Work is its own cure. You have to

like it better than being loved.

Why not use this month to identify the ways you postpone writing? So you can write more. It’s never relaxing, might even be costly. How many of us applaud our efforts, thinking, “I couldn’t possibly have done better”? Yet, as novelist Chitra Divakaruni put it, “The question is what you would give up for your writing.” Want to use this month to find out?

Revision and the “Real” Questions

Novelists often face the question, “How’s your writing going?” It often feels like the subtext is “How long will it take to finish/seek an agent/make money/prove your worth/quit fiddling around?” So however sincere, the query frequently disheartens. But perhaps it disheartens less than the questions writers ask ourselves.

As you revise, do you “object” when your own questions “lead the witness”? Maybe you should. Sometimes these pseudo-questions arrive in the form of rationalization. “Isn’t this passage pretty much good enough?” or “Surely tension on every page is an exaggeration?”

Then there are the attacks, either direct or insidious. “What makes you think you’re a writer?” “Do you seriously believe you’ll ever publish?” And finally, “Why bother?”

These mimic questions, but they’re really not. The real questions are ones where you don’t know the answers in advance: a genuine question seeks new information. Fake questions demoralize. Worse, they impede asking—and answering—the real ones.

Without the right questions, how can you work on the right things? Serious novelists face two crucial questions: “Who is my audience?” and “How can I read my words as if someone else wrote them?”

The question of audience has a subset of questions beneath it. These can get you started:

~ Is this audience most entranced by plot? Voice? Originality? Romance? Insight?

~ How much inference would your audience prefer?

~ What can you glean from technique in novels intended for a similar audience?

~ Do you push the edge of the conventions and expectations for this genre?

~ Are you at peace with whether this audience makes your book hard or easy to sell?

Questions can also help you trick yourself into reading your words as a stranger would.  Try some of these:

~ Do you offer enough drama to advance the plot—on every page?

~ Do you have a reasonable amount of dialogue, and does it all contribute?

~ Do you add fact, detail, or politics for their own sake rather than the story’s?

~ Do you “tell” what you could “show”?

~ Do you try to “show” what you’re better off just explaining?

~ Do you rationalize about how good the sentence, paragraph, or scene really is?

~ Do you waste energy defending what you did instead of trying to do it better?

Marge Piercy said that “The real writer is one who really writes.” It’s equally true that the real writer is one who grapples with what’s really at stake—within the plot and outside it.

Tip: Want real results? Ask real questions.