NaNo & Me

So, I've been thinking about NaNoWriMo and my own thoughts/experiences as November looms around again (in the course of doing this, I will probably state my opinion as to whether or not it's a Good Thing, but what the hell).

I tried NaNo a couple of times, but it wasn't until last year that I actually won.  I don't know if that's because I'd voiced my decision to take part to more people, thereby making the embarrassment of failure greater; because I finally discovered an untapped well of self-discipline*; or because I had the right story this time, but I did it.  Just over 50,000 words in just under a month.  Oh, I was smug.  I think that's something NaNo is good for (here comes an opinion) - it makes you prove to yourself that you are capable of writing that steadily for that long, that you have a story that can flow for that long.

Saying that, what I produced during that month was not good.  It was messy as hell.  Plot lines petered out, characters disappeared then bobbed up again, I realised the entire main action plot was wrong, and at one point I changed tack so completely that I went from numbering my chapters to lettering them.  I wound up with 'Chapter 3a' and 'Chapter R2 use this one not the other'.  The ending was completely pasted on in an effort to narrate the finale and get over 50K.  It was, in short, something that I will never show anyone and which I haven't looked at since December last year.

So, what was my NaNo draft good for?  The characters and the general idea were there, and I've been working on turning it into a proper novel (with properly numbered chapters) ever since.  That has been hard and difficult and there have been stretches where I've given up completely because it is so tricky and surely it's easier to watch a load of crime drama and not think about the festering mess that is my novel?  But I know, from experience, that that's how I write, so I don't think I'd be doing anything differently if it wasn't a NaNo novel - in fact, I probably wouldn't have even got to the end of the Plot That Was Wrong without NaNo.

Am I doing NaNo this year?  Yes.  I'm still in the middle of turning last year's muddle into something coherent, but I want to a) write something new; and b) fall in love with writing again.  That is a hideous cliche, but I miss the freewheeling madness of working without an outline or thoughts of themes and subplots and character arcs.  To plunge in and write whatever pops into my head with no worries about whether the first line has a good enough hook, whether the plot fits classic structure and whether I'll be able to turn it into something publishable.  In the middle of November, hyped on coffee and checking your word count every five minutes, it's actually fun.

This is turning blathery, so to cut it down: NaNo worked for me.  It got me to finish what I started, which is rare, and it got me to do it without running the deadline up to the wire, which is even rarer**.  I can see why agents and editors would get pissed off with it, because there is a temptation, during the euphoria of finishing, to view your creation as the Most Perfect Thing Ever and send it out in all its manic, messy glory.  But that isn't what (I think) NaNo's for - to me, it's about getting a massive push to write something that may not be publishable or polished or even on nodding terms with good writing, but which is still yours, and proof that you can do this writing thing if you try.

That is quite a preachy note to finish on; I feel the need to lighten the mood, but I can't think of any way to do that.  Er, The Apprentice is good so far...

* Said well having remained hidden throughout school, college and university.
** I was one of those people who finished essays the night before they were due in, sitting up till 4am mainlining coffee and fumbling through books for the exact quotation of Sarpedon's death oh where the hell is the head drooping like a poppy bit I can't find it I'm going to fail this time for sure maybe my friends will kill me so I don't have to hand this in.