It's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and so it's time for my annual re-read of 'No Plot? No Problem' by Chris Baty, founder of NaNo. And what struck me on this read-through is the value of having a humble estimation of your writing project.
While trying to write a first draft at a rapid pace, it can be FATAL to decide you are working on the Great American Novel. You will constantly be tempted to stop/slow down to get every word just right. It will seem like a good idea to skip two or three writing days in order to do research on a few minor things for your story, to make sure everything is just right.
The NaNo approach isn't about sitting down to write great literature and getting everything right. It's about getting things WRITE. It's OK to write second-or-third rate prose for NaNo. It's OK to use Thuggy for a minor thug character's name and plan to give him a real name in the rewrite. It's OK to write INSERT CLEVER PLOT THING HERE and move on.
The NaNo goal--- 50000 words in a month--- seems insane for the inexperienced writer, but it actually works out to the sort of writing pace many of the best professional writers do routinely, at least during their youthful, energetic career phase. A number of writers have written decent novels in the period required or less. In fact, some in their heyday could do a write and rewrite of a 50000 word genre novel in a month after they had a bit of writing experience.
Many writers who did this were working on forms of fiction they thought of as 'potboilers'. Lawrence Block, the mystery writer, famously wrote a lesbian novel as his first published novel, and went on to write soft-core porn novels to pay the rent while also writing mystery short stories.
By giving yourself permission to write imperfect fiction, you are giving yourself the needed permission to WRITE. Even great novels are not perfect, and were even less perfect in the first draft.
Fear of error is a great source of insecurity for writers. For me, at an early age I somehow internalized the idea that making a mistake--- in writing or in other things--- was close to unforgivable. In school I often failed to complete writing assignments to avoid the shame of having my errors exposed--- even though my writing skill was ahead of that of my classmates.
By deciding that my current work in progress is NOT great literature, but more of a potboiler, perhaps closer to a writing exercise in combining incompatible genres (gothic romance, science fiction), I am able to reduce my overwhelming anxiety when sitting down to write. Yeah, I still have this sick feeling that I'm about to have a panic attack when I just think about sitting down to write, but this counters it a bit.
So, that's it about my humble and insignificant writing efforts. How are YOURS coming along?
My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt
I've participated in both NaNo and BuNo and planned ahead with detailed outlines. It helped me to just forge ahead and write.
ReplyDeleteBoth manuscripts ended up becoming published books.