You may remember way back in October I decided I'd try my hand at NaNoWriMo, I didn't finish with the 50,000 words needed to win although I did "finish" a very rough first draft of my book. In the process, I learned NaNoWriMo isn't for me.
The biggest reason NaNoWriMo isn't for me is because it doesn't work with my writing process. In case you don't know the premise of NaNoWriMo is to finish a novel in 30 days, said novel consisting of 50,000, in other words, you're working on quantity over quality.
When I'm writing my chapters I always start with "what if" questions and I like to do this in a free form brainstorming way on a piece of notebook paper before putting words to the page. Much like I do when I'm reading I want to see how the story plays out in my head in the case of writing I want to see it in a few different ways to see what feels right to me. NaNoWriMo didn't really leave me time for the luxury of brainstorming after every chapter, you just have to keep writing not knowing what you've already written or where you're headed.
The second part of my process that doesn't really fit with NaNoWriMo is my working outline. This outline serves as my road map that tells me where I've been and where I hope to go. I try to update this outline at the end of each writing session but again there wasn't a lot of time for updating an outline, just pump out the words no matter if they are good, bad, or ugly.
What I'm left with after NaNoWriMo is 157 printed pages of who knows what, I haven't been brave enough to take a peek yet. I've been working on outlining the plotline I know I didn't follow through the full book so when I do get brave enough to read this first draft disaster I already have an idea of where at least one plotline begins and ends.
I don't do it because I don't like the jamming and the importance of word count over the actual words themselves.
ReplyDeleteI don't even know what I would write in a book so just trying, whether it's quantity or quality or an outline, is awesome to me. I can see how the numbers game could get frustrating, though!
ReplyDeletei can barely churn out blog posts let alone a freaking book! LOL
ReplyDeleteI liked it for the sake of proving to myself I can write and finish a book but since I "won" in 2012, I haven't done it again. I've tried but I no longer feel the pressure, or have the desire, to churn out a book of shit. I know that many successful books have started as NaNo books but those were mostly from established writers (like Rainbow Rowell) so while inspirational stories, they don't help me.
ReplyDeleteI can't write under that kind of pressure anymore. I don't want to, either.
I use it every year more as motivation to continue writing/working on things I'm already writing. So I'm not reallllly following the system, but it keeps me energized to see how much I can focus and accomplish in a month's time.
ReplyDeleteI feel like if I tried to follow along with the schedule, it would put more stress on me than anything and i would produce crap. I am very up and down with creativity and I cant be forced. SO I can see some of what you said about not knowing what you wrote. I cant wait til you do have a book!!!
ReplyDeleteI think it would stress me out too much to be able to do that! Sometimes I work well under pressure but I don't think it'd work for me to write a book.
ReplyDeleteI think I would be way too anxious to try it! It just sounds forced to me.
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