Nanowrimo: Throwing in the Towel

So, for the first time, after much prompting from my wonderful fiancée, I finally worked up the nads to participate in November’s Nanowrimo event, where a few hundred thousand writers around the world endeavor to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I was pretty excited to finally be writing for Nanowrimo for the first time. I had participated in ways in the past, treating Nano more as a writer’s holiday where I work on a current literary project every day, sometimes with a word count of 800 words per day. In doing that, it took me…oh, about 3 years…to complete the first draft of a novel. So I read books about Nanowrimo (Including No Plot? No Problem! written by the event’s founder,) I created character profiles and an outline for a story I’d been thinking about on and off since high school. The average word per day to complete 50,000 words by November 30^th was a bit over 1,600, so I bumped it up to an even 2,000 words per day. It was thrilling! But at the same time, I was terrified. 50,000 words in 30 days sounded completely insane, especially since it took me so long to write my first novel. Still, by my birthday, I was chomping at the bit to get started.

I was expecting the first two weeks to be difficult. I’d never created a story out of thin air without a ton of very in depth planning and exploration. But thanks to my outline, I had at least a rudimentary pathway. I was shocked by how easy it was to write 2000 words a day. It was incredibly easy. On average, it took me 2 hours to write my daily amount. Following Nanowrimo’s “quantity over quality” motto/the fast-and-furious method made it even easier. I flew through chapter after chapter, ignoring terrible adverbs and plot deviations, sticking to my outline, and in two weeks, I was far ahead of schedule; due to reach 50,000 words somewhere around the 25^th.

Then…I got engaged. I was still far ahead in my writing, and pounding out my 2000 words per day, but my enthusiasm had begun to lag ever-so-slightly. Wedding planning beckoned me whenever I sat down to write. We’re getting married in less than a year, I thought, We need to figure out where this wedding is happening and book it now, or nothing will be available! Sometimes I didn’t get to my Nano novel until 10pm, slipping my word count in just under the wire before midnight.

Then…I stopped the Photo a Day project I had begun to keep building my experience in photography, because editing the photos felt like I was wasting time when I could be writing. I started to procrastinate on my class readings and assignments, as well. I got quieter in my English discussion-based class, and the projects for my photography class grew rushed and weak. The downslide hasn’t hurt my grade at all, but I felt my self-discipline slipping away, and when that occured in past semesters, that never ended well.

Then…I got a seasonal retail job for the holidays. Suddenly, 6-8 hours of my day were spent on the bookstore floor, without a scrap of paper on hand to jot down an idea. I began missing a writing day here and there, which led to a barrage of self-destructive guilt trips. People do Nanowrimo while working two jobs with children at home! I would scold myself, People make a month’s worth of freezer meals for their families in October in order to have the time to write their novel! You spend 6 hours on your feet and you’re ready to give up! You’re not a writer! So I got engaged. So I have a job now. So what? So many people have so much more to do and they don’t give up on it!

It took time for me to realize that my dwindling desire for Nanowrimo wasn’t actually due to my engagement/wedding planning, my new job, or my dwindling enthusiasm for my classes. In the past seven days, I’ve only written for 5 of them, and that time was spent calculating how many words I have left every paragraph or so; the writing equivalent of staring at the clock, waiting for my time to be up. I began to dread writing. I began to resent having to cram 2000 crappy, unpolished words onto the page. I began to realize that I hated writing like this. My characters began to take action because the outline I wrote dictated it so, and I had no time to deviate from the outline and explore possibly better paths. My characters themselves were stale because I had no time to get to know them.

Ladies and gentlemen, the aesthetic paragraph break.

A couple of days ago, it finally hit me, fully. I hated my story. I didn’t hate it in a “the first draft of anything is shit” way (in a Hemingway? Ha!...sorry.) I hated it in a way that made me absolutely certain that, on December 1^st, I was going to delete all 50,000 freaking words and start from scratch.

I thought hard about staying in. With only six days left of Nano and 35,000 words down, I could easily buckle down and finish, just to say I did. But the number just kept coming back to me: 50,000 words thrown away. There was no point. So I made the decision to drop out.

Nanowrimo is a fun and productive experience for tons of writers. It offers a community, complete with forums, pep talks from professional writers, and a deadline, which can be the single most important thing for some writers. Nanowrimo got me writing every day, which is an imperative habit to develop if I have any hope of becoming a published writer.

But I’m a writer who needs time to get to know my characters, and to stray from the plot path to explore new avenues and possibilities. I’m also a solitary writer, preferring to work alone instead of during sit-ins and group sessions. I’m happy I learned that I can easily write 2000 words a day if pressed, but I’m not the kind of writer who can vomit 2000 words onto a page and consider it an accomplishment.

If you’re a writer who loves Nanowrimo and it works for you, gets you writing, and gives you something to edit into a functioning draft, that is awesome, and by all means, participate! If you’re curious about participating in Nanowrimo, do it! It’s absolutely worth the experience. But for me, it doesn’t really work. It drains my attention from other things I love to do, like photography, and important obligations that can’t be put on hold for 30 days. Apparently I can’t juggle as much as I thought I could. I will continue to use Nanowrimo as fuel to finish whatever I’m working on when November rolls around each year, but I don’t know if I’ll ever participate full throttle again.

…enter well-thought out post conclusion here!