nanowrimo reflections of a creative challenge: What I did and what I did it for

https://nanowrimo.org/

I had heard of National Novel Writing Month, or nanowrimo, and I've even known a few people who participated in it over the years. For those of you who don't know, it is an organization that helps the participants write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

A 50,000 word novel in November? Yup. Should a participant follow the plan, it's a mere composition of 1,667 words daily from November 1 to November 30. It seems like a daunting task, 50,000 words in 30 days.

Breaking it down, at least from my perspective, 50,000 words is a fairly short novel. Both of my novels, Dysphoric Notions and Undertakers of Rain are about 50K. They're short. I've drafted a number of these short novels. I write short novels because I like to read short novels. I believe that the best novels are the ones the average reader can read in one sitting. In short, I don't think 50,000 words is too much to tackle, not for a seasoned writer nor a writer who has just picked up a pen for the first time.

Then there's the thought of doing it in 30 days. Thirty days isn't much time. I wrote Dysphoric Notions and Undertakers of Rain in 8 and 6 weeks respectively. I did not write everyday, and I wrote the first drafts for each the way I wrote the first draft of this blog post—with my trusty Waterman fountain pen in my 9.75 x 7.5 inch wide ruled composition notebook. When I consider my process, the handwritten draft first followed by two subsequent drafts on a word processor, six to eight weeks is breakneck speed. Nanowrimo suggests writing same sized manuscript in half the time.

But, if you have a committed writing practice of 1,667 words a day, it shouldn't be that difficult to do.

I had one major argument for the time limit. I guess it's that whole l'esprit d'escalier, and when you write so fast you do not have time to ruminate over a scene, conversation or moment. You do not have the down time between writing sessions to digest what's happened and contemplate what will happen. I guess, what I really mean, it does take time to write and so much of that time, you aren't necessarily writing.

Yet, as I considered the 30 day challenge and the nanowrimo culture in general, many more convincing arguments for the challenge came up.

Now, if I wrote Dysphoric Notions and Undertakers of Rain in less than 2 months, I have three other manuscripts that took much, much longer. My graduate school thesis took two years and the final product is what I'd consider a rough cut of a novel. It's 50,000 words. I wrote Sand and Asbestos which appeared as a serial at The Sophia Ballou Project over a two year period as well. And the Coppertown manuscript I completed in Sept 2017, I began writing during my Sophia Ballou days in July of 2013. The last one took well over four years. What these three manuscripts have in common are a grueling length of time. And over such a long period of time, I changed as a writer and I changed as a person. I'm proud that I completed these stories, but they could have been better off had I completed them in 90 days or less. When I consider nanowrimo, good on them, start the process and have a deadline. All of us would be better for it.

A deadline will get you motivated to say on target. And no matter how much growth and change you can possibly experience in 30 days, you will write pretty much the same stylistically over the shorter period of time versus a project that goes on for years.

So, 50K in 30 days? It was worth the consideration. I felt like it was a challenge worth doing. I signed up on October 9^th. On November 1^st I began writing.