NaNo War Stories

In honor of tomorrow being NaNo Hump Day*, I figured I'd share a war story from yesteryear. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, not because I don't love the idea in general. More people writing! More first drafts actually getting finished, which is half the battle!

It's just that for me personally, as a year-round writer, NaNo messes up my stride. I do write my first drafts in frenetic 40-day-ish-long periods, but I tend to do that whenever I get into the groove -- usually about twice a year. Forcing myself to pop out a novel in 30 days when I may or may not have a kickass idea and may or may not be moving apartments/drowning in a flood/partying with crazy geologists is too jarring for me. Also, I seem to work best in either the dead of winter of the heat of summer. Probably because those are the two seasons when I hole up inside...

But back to my point! As a NaNo veteran, I wanted to let all you guys who are halfway through the plotting process know...

It's okay to give up.

"Wait!" you say. "NaNo is supposed to be about pushing yourself, and getting the first draft out there, no matter whether it looks like poo or not!"

And that's true. That's one way to write, and it works for many, many people. So I'm not knocking it.

But the writing process works differently for everyone. Some people write a novel a week. Some people take half a decade to produce their next opus. Either way is fine. You just need to find out what kind of writer you are, and stick with it. So if NaNo doesn't work for you, that's fine! However...

That doesn't necessarily mean it was a waste.

I promised a war story, so: last year, I attempted NaNo for the third time. The first two times did not end well for me. The first year, I won and immediately trashed the "novel" (it didn't even deserve that moniker to be honest), never to look at it again. The second time I won, and don't even remember what I wrote, it was that terrible. Wtf, brain!

Last year, I made it about halfway through the month, looked at the mangled wreck of a draft in my hands, felt my brain squeezing toward implosion, and I decided to surrender. Clearly this style of writing wasn't my thing. Another two weeks wasted, time I could've spent pouring my energy into one of the projects I was already working on, wah wah, etc.

But something new happened this year. Over the summer, in a fit of boredom, I pulled that abandoned NaNo draft from the closet and started reading. And kept reading. And thought, how the heck did I abandon this poor baby? Granted, the plot was a mess, and the ending predictable from a mile away. And yet... It had something. That special spark that keeps you going back to a piece, the power that fuels the creative engine.

I started revising at the same pace I originally tried to pop the thing out. I fell in love with the MS and the characters all over again. I eventually took a break to work on another, older piece that I still love to bits. But I'll be going back to the ex-NaNo draft soon, appropriately almost a year after I first quit it.

So even if you give up on NaNo, don't give up on your story. Who knows? A year from now you might be coming back to it all over again.

* yes, I made that up... but it's funny right! halfway there! Over the Hill! ... I'll stop now.