Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? You’ll only fail when you procrastinate, or let your negative self-talk take the wheel. You might not win NaNoWriMo, but you certainly can’t fail by trying. There are too many more important things to achieve from the effort.
When I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year – over a third into the month – I knew I wasn’t going to win before I even started, and that’s perfectly okay. I figured I would share my reasons for the countless others who are too worried about failing to even sign up.
The point of NaNoWriMo is to write, basically as much as you can, in 30 days. While the goal is 50,000 words, what happens during the 30 days is something else that’s a little marvelous.
Abandon Perfectionism
Because the goal is to hit a lofty word count, you don’t have time to self-edit as you go. While it’s perfectly normal – and common – to want to go back and edit passages, in order to hit your word count, you have to ignore that, push through, and keep going. Make notes if you have to for the things you want to change, but if you are guilty of self-editing, you can get hung up on scenes or chapters indefinitely by this impossible idea of perfection. We get so caught up on it, it robs us of our momentum and the process of creation. NaNoWriMo forces us to get over it and just write.
Make the Habit
Perhaps my favourite reason – and the reason I signed up this year in spite of my own limitations – is that you start to develop a habit during that time. And what is one of the top five things most practiced writers will tell you about what it takes to succeed? Creating the habit of writing.
Creating a Space to Write
I always love seeing people creating the spaces in which they write, setting the furniture and decorating with inspirational quotes or art. Every October, the writing groups get speckled with photos of writers setting up their nooks where they will hole themselves away for hours at a time. This can be as important as making the habit, especially if you are prone to distraction or have an active family that is likely to disturb you – avoidable when you establish that you are not to be interrupted when you are in there. This special space can serve a writer for years to come, and reinforces the habit of just writing when you sit yourself down to do just that.
Getting More on the Page
Depending on your writing style, this one could be more or less advantageous. If you are prone to the purple prose already, NaNoWriMo will be right up your alley. But what I love about it for myself and other under-writers is that it really does encourage you to be more colourful and exploratory with your storytelling.
I used to be so loquacious it bordered on pretentious, but my writing style has changed a lot over the years, and now I’m lucky if I even have action tags between dialogue snips in my early drafts. With NaNoWriMo, at least, I milk those moments a lot better in my rough drafts. (Nonfiction is a very different story, however.)
Although there are pros and cons to each writing style and everything in between, one of the benefits of having more on the page in the early drafts is that more of those ideas you had in the moment when the action was alive and bustling in your head are written down. The process of editing generally cuts about 30% anyways, so by giving yourself more to work with from the start, it saves you a step in the rewrites of embellishing those details.
Ignore the Purists
No matter what you do or where you go in this life, you are going to come across the haters. Purists can be a lot like that. As with any art, the creator needs to find the path that works best for them. Life circumstances are as diverse as they come, and you can never really tell what someone is or has gone through without walking in their shoes, so we just have to respect that everyone is going to be a little bit different, with different goals, and a different approach.
My philosophy is: do what works for you. If your NaNoWriMo is a collection of short stories or poetry, have at it. If you’re being motivated to write your magnum opus, go for it. If you only hit 23,000 words, who cares. You still have 23,000 more words than you did on October 31st so just write, create, and enjoy the process. Because it is hard, and even if you know you’re not going to “win,” if you can benefit from the push and incentive to try to hit word counts, then no matter where you end up on November 30th, you’re in a better place than when you started.