Why I do not NaNoWriMo

[truepenny]

So, it's NaNoWriMo again.

(For those of you who do not know, that's National Novel Writing Month.)

In her post about the recent NaNoWriMo kerfuffle, Mary Robinette Kowal, explaining the benefits NaNoWriMo provided to her, said, "When you are getting your legs, writing long form is really intimidating."

Now, I don't doubt for a moment that this is true for Mary. It's her post and she has no reason to lie. But I read that and I thought, Wait, what? Long form is EASY. It's short form that's scary like whoa.

And then it occurred to me that perhaps this was worth unpacking.

When I started writing (at the ripe old age of eleven), I started writing novels. Or, well, "novels," since I doubt any of my first efforts was any longer than what I'd think of as a short story or maybe a novelette today. But for me, at eleven, they were novels, and they were what I instantly and automatically gravitated to when I started trying to write. I knew the old chestnut about "if you want to break into publishing, you have to write short stories," so I tried, on and off through high school and college. (And then there was the most poisonous form rejection letter known to humankind, and I stopped like a lab rat hit with an electric shock.) But I never got the hang of it. Short stories were scary and hard and I didn't understand them. Novels, I just flung myself at; I started dozens, and every time one broke down, I just started another. I finished maybe three or four (using the word "novel" loosely, remember) before I started writing Mélusine, and got more than 50k into at least two others, but I never stopped trying, and I never had any fundamental doubt that I could do it. (Doing it well was a different question, but that's also a different post.)

I didn't go back to short stories until 2000, when I got handed the old chestnut about "breaking into publishing" again, this time by my then-agent. And, serendipitously, I met elisem and her jewelry. (I sometimes think my ability to write short stories is really all Elise's fault.) The first successful short story I wrote, in 2000, was "Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day", from one of her necklaces. The second was "Bringing Helena Back," which is the first Booth story. And, of course, obviously, I've gone on from there, but I've always felt like my grip on the form was tenuous; I'm never sure why one short story works and the next one doesn't. They're still scary and hard, and I still don't understand them very well, even though I've published nearly forty of them.

NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me because I'm a competitive, literal-minded over-achiever, and if I focus on word count, then word count is all I will get, and the novel will be drivel. (See also, Why Corambis Was Six Months Late.) This does not mean that I think NaNoWriMo is a bad thing in and of itself--and honestly, I don't have any right or ability to judge whether it's good or bad for other people. It's just bad for me.

All I wanted to say, really, was that if you're a beginning writer and NaNoWriMo doesn't work for you, that doesn't mean you can't write a novel.

Learning how to write is a never-ending process of trial and error. You have to try things to find out if they work for you. If they do, that's great. If they don't, it's not a disaster. It just means you try something else. There is no "right" way to do it; it's all down to what works for you and what doesn't. And nobody but you can make that call.

Comments

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me because I'm a competitive, literal-minded over-achiever, and if I focus on word count, then word count is all I will get, and the novel will be drivel.

Oh yes this. See also "Why 750words.com (750words.com) is not for me." I managed to make my wordcount on it for thirty consecutive days, and I learned that writing 750 words of blather every day does not make me any more productive than writing no words of blather every day; the only words I had worth keeping at the end of the month were the ones I would have written anyway.

Pity; various of my friends have found it incredibly helpful.

[bad-latin.livejournal.com]

It is extremely interesting to meet and hear about people who gravitate naturally to writing novels. I attempted a few as a kid but never made it past the first chapter; I thought in discrete units, and couldn't hook one scene to the next. I didn't try writing any short stories, though I don't know why. I did produce a lot of execrable teenage poetry.

For me, writing a novel seems tantamount to deciding to build a convection oven from scratch with my bare hands. I wouldn't know where to start, let alone what the parts are or how to tell if it's working. (This hasn't stopped me from trying Nanowrimo eight [this year makes nine] times, but my two "wins" were inherently broken and utterly accidental.)

I probably would have given up prose writing for life if not for @thaumatrope introducing me to Twitterfiction. Fiction as a nebulous concept baffled me; fiction in 140-character chunks I could do. I moved up to Ficlys and then to flash. Lately I've been getting critiques that my stories have outgrown my word counts, that I am trying to cram novels or at least novellas into 1000 words, and frankly the thought of trying to fix this terrifies me.

Add the fact that I was not, in my misspent youth, always going about writing, nor have I ever been labeled a natural storyteller or had characters show up in my head and refuse to go away, and I go about with serious doubts that I have the capacity to succeed at "being a writer" by my own metrics. But in the face of all this sturm und drag I keep showing up at the keyboard, so whatever that is, it is A Thing.

[marycatelli]

some people's metier is short; other's is long.

Me, it took me decades before I managed to perpetrate a novel. And that novel snuck up on me in disguise, pretending first that it was a novelette and then it was a novella before admitting the truth. (I had to do two more drafts just to put in all the stuff I had left out to try to keep it publishably short -- and then it was unpublishably long.)

[touch-of-ink.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh! The very first payment I ever received for a story was for a short story (the only one I've written) that was inspired by an elisem necklace, "Leaves of Grass". She sent me the necklace :)

I tend towards novels rather than short stories myself, though I've recently agreed to write a short story for a haunted house anthology. We'll see how that goes.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

But I read that and I thought, Wait, what? Long form is EASY. It's short form that's scary like whoa.

Amen, at high volume.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? Long form is EASY. It's short form that's scary like whoa.

I so agree.

Short fiction is much more complicated, somehow.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

For me, the shorter it gets, the closer it is to poetry. And poetry scares the bejesus out of me.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Poetry is on the bad end of my "I have no idea what I'm doing here" scale.

[aliseadae]

I dunno. Poetry turns out okay most of the time but whenever I switch to fiction it seems to tend towards the longer rather than the shorter end (no idea what they actually are--I am bad at finishing things. Learning how is a goal). Though there are a few exceptions on the flash fiction end but those probably come from a similar direction as the poetry.

I mean I know that it is different for everyone but learning how everyone feels and what is harder and easier is fascinating.

[literateshrew.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your honesty. It's interesting to get an actual published writer's take on NaNoWriMo, especially one I admire.

This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo and my third novel ever. At halfway through, I'm up to less than what they recommend for the first week. At first, I was totally discouraged, and then I realized that's okay. I'm still writing. The story is still moving, just not at that NaNoWriMo breakneck pace. And that's okay. According to their website, I'll "finish" (hit 50k words) by the end of January. And you know what? That's fine with me.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. The shortest thing I ever managed to write was a novellette. Which is in theory something I could do in NaNoWriMo, but I just like outlining and planning too much to just start writing and see where it goes.

But every writing technique is a personal choice, like clothing. It's not up to us to say that it won't work for others.

[orrin.livejournal.com]

I'm always glad when you talk about writing and processes and stuff. You always make it so cogent, just wanted to state my appreciation.

I'm in the opposite boat, in this case. Short fiction is the only kind of fiction I've ever really done, and the only kind I understand very well. By "understand" I mostly mean that it comes instinctively to me. Novels, for me, are big and intimidating by comparison, which is probably part of why 25,000 words was the longest workable thing I've ever written so far.

Also, as further proof that just because something isn't what you naturally gravitate to doesn't mean you can't do it, you're easily one of my favorite working short story writers, hands down.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[girlpunksamurai.livejournal.com]

I actually think both your short stories and your novels rock teh socks :

You've got the best set of characters I've seen from a writer since Dean Koontz and Dennis Lehane. With Mercedes Lackey bringing up a 3rd :] I will say that I'm awful at short stories myself. The first one I wrote at the age of thirteen? Twelve chapters long >.> Yeaahhh...let's just say that attempts made since then aren't that much shorter. Can I does this? I cannot :P