Oh Monday, you've been gone for a week. I wish you'd stay gone.
There are people all over the interwebs right now, arguing about the usefulness (or lack thereof) in NaNoWriMo. Some people are out there saying that the entire exercise is pointless, a giant waste of time. Others argue that it is about learning and building habits that are useful to every writer...
hmmm... Let's look at something from the NaNoWriMo website, CLICK ME IF YOU WANT TO GO THERE
"Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down."
I think the bigger arguments, for and against NaNo are built around this bit of info. The NaNo naysayers argue that, "writing a lot of crap" is a giant waste of time for thousands of people. Also, the fact that NaNo is an event made entirely for people that want to write a novel seems to invalidate everything done therein.
umm, who else should "National Novel Writing Month" be geared to?
Sorry folks, I am wholly on one side of this argument. You'll get no unbiased blogging here, and I'm not even a participant!
NaNoWriMo is for people interested in writing. If you're not interested, you probably don't know what it is, and probably don't care. I'm ok with that, you don't need to care.
Take me for instance, I am not a chef. If there is a "National Cook Your Heart Out" week, or NaCoYoHoWe, I am not interested. Even if most of what is cooked in that month tastes like dirty pants. I don't have to taste it, or even know how cooking shoes can help to make you a better chef. I do understand, however, that if NaCoYoHoWe helps one person to become a better Chef, then it is worth it. Especially to that one person.
I have written crap. You have probably also written crap. Therefore, WE have written crap, without a reason, and possibly without any encouragement or hope of making that crap better. NaNoWriMo gives a reason, encouragement, and hope to lots and lots of people.
It also might help people to realize that they are not writers, and that's ok too. Why waste years thinking about writing a novel, if after a week, you hate pens and paper and computers and everything that has to do with writing?
NaNo can also help people to become better and more disciplined. I know that making writing a part of your daily routine can be very hard to do, and if this project helps with that, then I'm sure you'll think that it was worth it. Even if everything you write this month really is crap.
Blah... wow that was a lot of soapboxin... sorry about that.
To the NaNoers out there, good luck :)
To everyone else, good luck as well :)
Thanks for reading,
buh bye then
I'm completely with you. People often need goals and support to push them along. Nano gives those people a goal to complete writing 50,000 words by the end of the month. To many it's a confidence boost and proves to them that they can do it, they can write something on a large scale. And then there's the support of all the thousands of writers joining in.
ReplyDeleteMe, I'm not taking part - have never taken part - but I've joined the hype in my own way and challenged myself to finish my own novel by the end of the month. I call it: NaFinYownNoMo...(or something like that...lol) but regardless of the name, I'm only 10,000 words away from the end.