Friday, October 29, 2010

No NaNoWriMo for me

Tip of the Day: Have a safe and happy Halloween! 


Everyone is talking about NaNoWriMo - that is, National Novel Writing Month.

I've never done it, and honestly, I probably never will.

I suppose I can see that for people who need a push, it can be a great thing. I'm generally a pretty motivated person though. Once I get a few seeds of an idea that I think I can grow into a full-blown book, I'm working on it everyday. Some books I've written extremely fast, while others are much slower going. I always let the story decide.

The one I'm working on now is going much slower than the other ones I've written this year. It has quite a few threads, and lots of characters, and all of that means I need to spend as much time thinking about the book, away from the computer, as I do actually writing it.

That's what I don't particularly like about the idea of plowing through a draft in 30 days. There's no time to stop and think about whether you're going in the right direction or not. Nathan Bransford talked a little about it HERE.

I've finally gotten a routine down that works for me and my family. It's a balanced routine, allowing me time to exercise, time to make dinner for the family most nights, help with homework, etc. It's just not worth it to me to upset that balance for a month to try and hurry up to get a draft done. I'll get my draft done eventually. I hope by the end of the year. But we'll see.

Don't get me wrong - if you're committing to it, I'm routing for you! I just don't really want to be you. :)

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career

2 comments:

Kate Fall said...

I did NaNoWriMo a few years back, and it was a great fallback for making my family understand I was going to spend large chunks of time writing. I had to plan all through October, though. It wasn't like I just started typing. My outline was done by Halloween. And you know, I still never thought it worth finishing the revising of that novel. But it was wonderful to have my family cheering me on for a month, more vocally than usual.

Andrea Mack said...

Lisa, I'm like you. I have a routine down for my writing that works, and I can (mostly) keep myself motivated. I'm not sure I'll ever try NaNo. At least not while I have so many family responsibilities. But Kate has an intereting point about it drawing attention to supporting Mom's need for some quiet time for writing. Maybe I could pretend I'm doing NaNo?