National Novel Writing Month Throwdown

[Steven_Q_Erkel]

I'm going to write an autobiography.

[gurgeh]

You aren't supposed to start just yet- not until November 1. Not that I care since it's almost November, and I forget whether you can still post excerpts of your novel on your NaNoWriMo profile. In any case I wouldn't ask for criticism while writing. Even a really good writer is going to be churning out stuff that's VERY raw, especially around the midpoint, and getting discouraged about the quality won't help. Once you're done, I'd let it sit a while, give the whole thing a run through for editing, adding, deleting, changing, etc., and only then let somebody else look at it.

[gurgeh]

I forgot to mention before: My NaNoWriMo name is Hezekiah. If you've signed up, let everyone know who you are so we can track each other's progress.

So far, nobody has PMed me to make any kind of bet. This is very disappointing.

[gurgeh]

[ QUOTE ]
Why would anyone want to put so much effort into writing an awful novel? Wouldn't it be better to take six months or a year, work less hard, and write better?

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience, no. And if you read On Writing, I believe Stephen King doesn't believe that writing a novel should take more than a few months, ever.

The idea is (and my experience reinforces it) that you need to get your stuff down instead of sitting there moping that you can't think of how to continue. The limited time frame and required volume force you to churn out text that, while it might be choppy, inarticulate, or even totally lame, still contains your basic ideas about what it needs to be. It's easier to edit than it is to create from scratch, so getting all this stuff down and then honing it later if by far preferable to sitting there, making sure every sentence is right before moving on.