Debating NaNoWriMo: I Think I Need to Get Started

My First Impressions

Sometime during the fall of my senior year, a girl in my AP Composition and literature class was bragging, again, about her forthcoming attempt to write a novel. While she hadn’t completed her goal of 25k words last year, she felt confident that with what she had learned last time and what this class had taught her she would do better. Rolling my eyes at what I viewed as another teacher kiss up discussion board post, I moved on with my day. She ended up making it to 30k words, or something like that and said she was so happy to have participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). First, I had no clue what that was, but then once she explained it after I asked her, I was more annoyed that she, an author that wasn’t that great, had heard of it and not me, an obviously better author.*

Some Perspective

However, looking back, I was unwittingly and yet blatantly jealous. Here was some freshman going and writing novels, when I was a senior in high school and had wanted to do that since middle school. Although she didn’t meet her goal, the fact that she was able to write so many words in such a short period of time was incredibly impressive. I would never have admitted that. She was too similar to me and it threatened my in-head narrative that I was the only teen, who wanted to write novels and was actually going to do it. That is also probably the reason that I was somewhat resentful when I learned other teens had already published novels by the time they were 16. But anyways, at the time I ignored NaNoWriMo, because I was too busy and didn’t need a special event to make me write. That’s what I told myself, but I made no progress on writing those novels for several years. 

It Wouldn’t Go Away

Last fall, a representative came into my writing fiction class and said he was from the local campus NaNoWriMo group. They got together every week to write. I was interested, but again thought I was too busy. Plus, it was halfway through November already. Nevertheless, the idea of getting together with people who were like-minded and writing was much more appealing than it used to be. An old vlogbrothers video**, where John Green praises the benefits of writing with other (aspiring/or not) authors, played a part in changing my mind. 

Apprehensive

Now it’s October and November is quickly approaching. I am debating whether take part in NaNoWriMo this year. A member from the blogging group I am in on google+ promoted their online group for NaNoWriMo 2017 and got me thinking about it. But I am scared that what I will write will be, to put it mildly, no good. I’m sure other people feel the same. You have all these exciting ideas that you think are thrillingly colorful and thoughtfully brilliant. But either when you go to write them, you suddenly are excruciatingly aware of limitations of your own writing abilities. I don’t want to take a dazzling idea and have it be lackluster on the page. I am also worried I won’t be able to discipline myself to write every day, that I won’t have time, that I’ll end up writing once per week and stressing myself out due to tendency to place high expectations on myself and then become devastated when I don’t achieve them. See all the excuses my brain makes?

Practice What You Want to Get Good At

            At the same time, I read somewhere (I think it was in Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg***) that if you want to write novels you should practice writing novels, not short stories or anything else because the forms are dramatically different. Sure writing is better than not writing at all, but if I really want to get good at writing novels I should write more novels. I don’t want to be just a non-fiction life blogger****. That’s not my goal. It’s a cool thing, but it’s not my goal. Currently, I’m being more diligent with my blog than any fiction novel writing. Fingers crossed I can stay diligent, and again some writing is better than no writing, but I want to improve as an author. I think I need to get started. 

The Plan

Planning this out, I won’t go in with a declared word count. Instead, my goal will to be to write something every day. It’s still terrifying, but I think that is the way I will have to approach it if I don’t want to make myself crazy with guilt and obligation. This is something I love and I don’t need my perfectionist streak obliviating my passion for it. So I’ll do NaNoWriMo, but without a word goal, just a determination to write something everyday. Even if it’s only a sentence. Just write something everyday. I’ll risk a book idea, because even if what I write is trash, then the next time, I can try to write it better and avoid the mistakes I’ll make this time. Like Goldberg says she knows plenty of people who want to write the next great American novel and then never write anything, because who would want to with such a large expectation placed upon them. I’m giving myself permission to write the worst stuff imaginable. It’s not about creating the awesome book in my head on paper. It’s the fact that I’m writing. With every keystroke, I’m getting closer to becoming a published author. One way or another, Julia will write.

Notes: 

*Up until this point, I’ve been writing as I thought then, clearly biased and jealous. I feel ashamed now, but it would be disingenuous to claim I didn’t and still don’t act flawed-ly human.

**Not sure which one. If I find it, I’ll add it here. If anyone knows what it is, feel free to mention it in the comments!

***Not paid to say this, but her book is amazing! She gives such good advice for writers, professional, amateur, any kind.

**** Is that what this blog is? I’m still not sure.

Sources: 

Image Credit: Véronique Debord Lazaro What?