NaNoWriMo or Not?: A Vigorous Defense

National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us, and so is the annual backlash. Every year, NaNoWrimo-ers are besotted with complaints that…

National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us, and so is the annual backlash. Every year, NaNoWrimo-ers are besotted with complaints that the month of writing is pointless, is endemic of the cult of the amateur, is a narcissistic enterprise.

Every year we are reminded by the representatives of the publishing industry that the world needs more readers, not more writers, and that most NaNo-ers do not meet the 50,000 word goal in time, or even keep going at all, and that it doesn’t matter even if they do meet the goal, anyway, because 50k is not enough to make a true book.

To hell with all that nonsense. And to hell with the voice that tells you not to give it a try. I know you’re out there. You’re contemplating participation but you are daunted by the numbers. You can’t write 1,666 words a day! You don’t even have an outline! Besides, no one will ever read it, and you won’t have the heart to edit it! These all-too-common worries, coupled with the anti-NaNo complaints of professional publishers may be enough to quell your motivation and keep you in the realm of the passive reader.

Fuck that. NaNoWriMo is awesome. It made me the writer and existentially (almost) satisfied person I am today. Two years ago, I was a surreptitious, amateurish writer, pulling together the rare and shitty post modern short story and sending it via email to one or two friends. Then, on a balmy and boring November 5th (don’t worry this isn’t about to become a V for Vendetta thing), I checked a Chicago events calendar and realized: Oh. It’s that National Novel Writing Month thing.

It was 6pm and the event was a communal “write in” at a cafe in Lakeview. Without hesitation, compelled for reason I can’t grasp, I packed my shit up and ran off out of my office on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus, onto the red line, and rolled into that mess only a few minutes late.

By the time I had arrived, I already had an idea. I never used to come by ideas that easily. But I had been working in Cook County Jail and Chicago Public Schools that summer, and my head was bubbling with what I’d seen and felt in both places. I knew what I was going to do. I was going to write a novel about a CPS student who ends up in Chicago’s jail system, who notes the remarkable parallels between the two organizations, undergoes drug treatment (I worked on a drug treatment wing of the jail), and gets out.

I popped into the NaNo write-in with just a phone and a backpack full of graduate school readings. I sat at a table and began typing vigorously. After a few minutes, the event’s organizer asked me if I was participating. I said yes. She asked why I was writing on a phone. To slow myself down, I said. It was true. I was a wordy fucking bitch (hi there, still am) and needed something to keep me from packing the story with too many adjectives and winding clauses. The ideas were bursting out, and the memories were fresh, and I was fucking cooking.

I started NaNoWriMo late, but clocked in at over 300,000 words nonetheless. Yeah. I went to write-ins all over Chicago, haunted libraries and cafes and bars at all hours of the day, vigorously typing. When I was at work at the jail and we went on lockdown, I pulled out a notebook and kept scrawling. I wrote in my Child Psychopathology class. I wrote on the toilet and the edge of the bed with my hair dripping wet after running out of the shower with an idea asserting itself. I wrote during lab meetings while my adviser was having one of his many weekly conniptions. I wrote on the train; I wrote while walking. Such is the magic of using the Notepad app of your phone and a ton of useful anecdotes.

The book, when I finished it, disgusted me. It was too precious, the dialogue was trying too hard, and the details were too lush and self-conscious and lyrical. I gave one character a fucking Molly Bloom-esque stream-of-consciousness soliloquy as she road the red line to court. The antagonist was a program evaluator like me (I always base my antagonists on myself; talk about a self-esteem issue). There were interactions that weren’t necessary.

The worst part was the writing disparity. The first half of the book was noticeably worse than the second half. More stilted, more stumbling. The second half had begun to find its voice, but it didn’t all congeal.

Does this not sound like a pro-NaNo argument? It is. What I’m saying is that my writing style and voice had so dramatically improved over the course of the month that the earlier half of my work was garbage to me. My older stories, the ones I had written slowly in secret and not shared? They were an idiotic half-sibling to the shit I was now writing. I didn’t mind that the book was unsalvageable. Really. I just wanted to see more improvements like that. I kept banging away, and soon I had a voice. Not long after that, I started actually getting shit published.

To become accomplished at anything, you must log a ton of hours. Malcolm Gladwell gives a precise figure, but you have to understand that’s arbitrary and he isn’t a real psychologist, dammit. But the idea sprouted from a kernel of truth. It’s like that Ira Glass quote about how one’s taste always exceeds one’s talent, at first. You just gotta bang out a ton of shit that doesn’t meet your expectations before you get anything good. NaNoWrimo is made for that.

If you’re looking for a nudge in the NaNoWriMo direction, this is it. After participating in that event, I gained confidence in my writing ability, began writing on a nearly daily basis, and started sharing my work online. I’m not a great writer by any means, but I have been paid for my work and have been read by thousands of people in a number of outlets. I wrote another book and loved it right away; Tumblr and thousands of Amazon downloaders liked it, too.

I’m not trying to say my shit is good — it’s so, so not, I suck, I know it — but I never would have had any of these awesome, enlivening experiences if I’d been too scared to try. Before NaNo, I was terrified and socially anxious about my writing. After, I wasn’t. And the reason was simple: I had written a ton and become better at it.

Give NaNo a shot. Don’t pressure yourself to create a book that you love and publish. Think of it as a draft! Or even better, think of it as a process, one that will make you a more talented and confident writer. If anything actual comes out of the written product, so much the better. But most of the gains will dwell within you.

Up next: A list of the top complaints about NaNoWriMo, and my responses.

Originally published at erikadprice.tumblr.com.