Ever since I first heard about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I've regarded it with ambivalence. For those of you who don't know, NaNo is the drag-racing of the literary world. Every November, thousands of aspiring novelists chain themselves to their computers and inject coffee into their veins with one goal in mind: 50,000 words in 30 days.
John Gardner, the renowned writer and teacher, said once that the novelist is a marathon runner while the short story writer is a sprinter. It is all, common wisdom tells us, about pacing oneself. For the NaNo crowd, though, it seems the point is to sprint through a marathon. They punch their inner critic in the face before kicking in his ribs, burning down his house, and insulting him with an endless stream of words. The normal worries and anxieties that plague the novelist become moot, and the deadline is all that matters (the official NaNo guide is entitled "No plot? No problem.").
I'm a painfully slow writer. My inner-critic is always behind me, boxing my ears and giving me atomic wedgies. Even this post is nearing the 30 minute mark, and it's only 189 words so far. If I can hit a page in a day, I feel accomplished. So of course I pull away from the NaNo philosophy. I could participate, perhaps, in a NaNoReMo, where the Re stands for revision, but when it's writing, I'm hopeless.
However, even for me, there's something to be gained from the fact that NaNoWriMo exists. It makes it harder for the aspiring novelist to self-crucify. After all, what right do I have to complain about the difficulty of novel-writing when others do it gladly in a twelfth of the time? And the idea that writing is a solitary, painful process begins to evaporate when you witness the type-a-thons and other community events where NaNo's share pep talks and Pepsis, laughing together toward the common goal. And finally, if nothing else, it reminds us that books are not made wholly in the mind, that the intention to write the next great novel is worthless without the straightforward gumption to just sit down and do it.
In other words, by its sheer existence, NaNoWriMo goes a long way in pulling sticks out of hard to reach places.
P.S. For those of you interested more in fact than fiction, you might take a look into NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).
Image courtesy of NaNoWriMo.org.
