Nanowrimo!

Hello, darklings!

Nanowrimo is swiftly approaching, hurtling toward us like a retriever after a tennis ball.

For those who know not what I speak of, go to nanowrimo.org to learn more. It’s basically a novel writing challenge—write 50,000 words in a month. That’s roughly 1,667 words a day, which is about six paperback pages worth, or two to three electronic doc pages (depending greatly on your font and line settings).

I’ve been doing Nanowrimo since 2004 and have only "lost" twice due to life events. I always return excited with a project I haven't written before. The idea always charms me: to write no matter what. I eagerly use it as a clean slate for ideas.

The greatest appeal of this challenge by far is the gagging of our inner editor. Sometimes the editor in us makes us freeze, unable to move forward with the story. We get too obsessed with first draft perfection.

Listen well, little corvids—writing is a messy art.

Perfect first draft? Maybe if you’re not human.

Sensational without an editor and beta readers? Uh, only if you’re deluded or a weird machine.

Remember all details with no need to backtrack? What are you, a mutant superhero (villain)?

No writer that I know of pops out perfect novels on the first draft. This took my a while to learn, to understand that it’s okay to scrawl out a messy nightmare of words. Nanowrimo embraces and encourages that. Write. Just write. Write badly. Once you write it badly, then you can work on writing it well. But you must make that ugly rough draft first.

There is another reason why I love turning off the inner editor and just writing—sometimes my muse gives me the best plot nuggets.

These little plot twists unfold like magic as I’m writing. I often don’t think of those details during the outline. Those ideas manifest organically as I’m writing.

That makes for a lot of mess to clean up when I go back over it the second time.

Now, does Nanowrimo always grant me a super great rough that I can turn into a fabulous novel? No. Sometimes, it’s a flop! But it still gives me the opportunity to write out an idea to see if it works. If nothing else, I can examine why something doesn’t work. That's important, too!

So, good luck to all of us going into Nanowrimo on a mission to write some messy first drafts.

Write sloppy, you crazy crows.