NaNoWriMo is a month long novel writing project that runs throughout the month of November. I’m sure most of you have heard of it, and a lot of you participate.
Many of authors follow this enterprise to write 50,000 words in a month. There have even been some successful books published that were birthed by doing this initiative.
I however, don’t participate – and don’t plan to.
I do appreciate the effort put forth by those that take on this challenge. Accountability is NEVER a bad thing. My issue with the project is that it focuses on the quantity of work you produce, not the quality.
Sure – I can write a few thousand words a day. But if they aren’t readable, who cares? Forcing myself to participate just to hit a word count goal doesn’t make sense to me. I would rather write 300 great words in a month, than 50,000 so-so words just to hit my goal.
And if I should fall behind on my word count, I would easily get discouraged and feel unproductive as a writer. The comparison of my failure to others in the program wouldn’t do my writing any good.
If you struggle with NaNoWriMo, you aren’t alone.
But, who knows?
Maybe next year will be the year I actually pump out a novel in 30 days.
However unrealistic that seems.
