Deborah Cooke: Author

And they’re off! November is National Novel Writing Month and those who participate in NaNoWriMo aim to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It’s often perceived by writers to be the big push necessary to get that draft done. One of the core ideas is that writers should give themselves permission to write nonsense, just to get something down on the page to edit.

I’ve never done NaNoWriMo, and there are two reasons for that.

First, if you write commercial fiction, 50K months are not that unusual in terms of output. You won’t have one every month, but IME you’ll have a tight delivery once every year or two. (I’m having one right now.) Time crunches crop up, and in order to keep publication slots, writers generally need to be the ones to make up the time. That means writing faster for a specific period of time. In these situations, the writer can’t write nonsense, because at the end of the crunch, he or she needs to deliver a publishable manuscript.

This has always been the case – I sold my third book (in 1993!) because my editor had an empty slot in the publication schedule. She told me that if I could write a book in 30 days – that was a 90K historical romance – I could have that slot. I did it and sold the book. (It was HONEYED LIES, written third but published second.)

My second point is a matter of personal preference or style, but it ties into the time crunch issue. Many writers prefer to edit than to write, so getting anything down on the page helps them to move forward. These writers often suggest writing anything “because you can always edit”. If this is your preference or style, then that advice will work for you and so will NaNoWriMo. I would rather write clean in the first place, than revise work into shape. Editing is extremely time consuming for me, and more time consuming depending upon how far the work is from where I need it to be. Writing nonsense then editing it into shape takes me four or five times as long as just getting it right in the first place.

When time is of the essence, that matters.

As a result, I prefer to wait until I know what the scene is and what has to happen within it. Then I try to get it as close to perfect the first time. For writers like me, getting in the habit of just getting anything down to make progress is counter-productive and ineffective.

So, think about what kind of a writer you are, and how you prefer to work. NaNoWriMo might work for you or it might not, depending upon your style. There’s no reason why you can’t use NaNoWriMo to get into the habit of writing polished prose under the pressure of time.

One of the dangerous ideas in the world of writing is that every “rule” or piece of advice applies to every writer. We’re all different, though, and that’s okay. You just need to find and respect your own balance. Figure out what works for you, then don’t worry about what everyone else says you should do.