The Three Faces of NaNoWriMo
By Scarlett Archer
Copyright © 2009 by Scarlett Archer, All Rights Reserved
The fever of National Novel Writing Month is contagious, infectious, and
can possibly be frightening. For the majority of NaNo’ers the fear is
overridden by the anticipation but for some the fear is too great. We
don’t often think of those who don’t jump on the bandwagon wagon but I’m
here to remind us all of what NaNoWriMo really is.
I came into NaNoWriMo six years ago and found myself in chaos. It wasn’t
in stillness that I identified with my writing the most but a riot of
words. I threw myself headlong into it and before I realised it, I was
streaking far ahead and the characters were pouncing out of me and the
scenes avalanching closely behind. I couldn’t hold myself back.
In my third year, NaNoWriMo took on a new face. In fact it had many new
faces. I had to face new challenges – because my goal moved even further
away since I knew I could achieve 50,000 words. It had the face of a
community who was there for me, who challenged me and supported me. I
was romanced by NaNoWriMo and I gave myself into it without any
argument. I held write-ins at my home and at café’s, participated in
word wars, and directly inserted a USB cord from my laptop to my arm so
that I was in constant connection with the internet, chat, Facebook,
Livejournal, and the NaNoWriMo forums.
I was involved in regular events in my city, weekly drinks and meetings
where I could sympathise and gloat and swap ideas and characters.
NaNoWriMo is a hive of mental, creative activity. Not specifically to
write until you bleed but to be involved in a combination of brains that
can help you break new ground and revisit old ground.
And then, suddenly, there was an anxious face to it.
Depending on how deep you are in the NaNoWriMo pool you could be, or be
surrounded by, people who are overzealous about it. Eagerness is
something to be promoted, and optimistic about, until it latches onto
you like a virus. I have seen the alternate face of peer pressure and
the mark it can leave if you take something like this too seriously.
Humans yearn to belong; we instinctively seek communities. We will do
what we need to in order to stay inside, be approved of, and accepted
within that community. Sometimes, we’ll dedicate ourselves a little more
to things than we perhaps should, and then lose sight of what’s really
important to us.
We have to bring two masks to the party of NaNoWriMo -- two masks we may
not even know we have. The first is ego. The second is humility.
NaNoWriMo is about setting out to prove we can do something we’re not
sure we can do, and that requires both ego and humility. We can never
gain a 50/50 split between the two and I will say straight up that my
percentage is tipped toward ego. I wish I had more humility but really,
it’s my ego talking.
With the precarious balance of these two masks we can either enjoy or
destroy our NaNoWriMo experiences. Initially people are thrilled by the
idea of NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words in a month? Possible? I have no idea,
let’s have a go! Then the lines get blurry and different tribes of the
NaNoWriMo culture emerge to make their own rules that they may have
specified or may assume that everyone else knows.
Some of these rules -- most of which are not official, but are created by
the tribes -- are as follows: You must only do 50,000 words. You must
only do 50,000 words in one manuscript. If you do more than 50,000 words
it must be a new manuscript. You are only allowed to do one manuscript
no matter how many words it may be. You cannot edit as you go. You must
register your wordcount as you go. If you do more than one manuscript
you must have different usernames that you use, one per manuscript. You
must put all your manuscripts wordcount under the one username. You must
only do a novel, not a script nor a poem or a memoir or short stories or
a thesis or non-fiction or fan-fiction.
Of course, NaNoWriMo encourages us to break almost every other rule of
writing. We know, we know, that it is about quantity and not
quality. This means people sometimes use full names (Sergeant Michael
Mark Richardson the Third Junior), several sex scenes, lots of info
dumping, lots of adjectives, flashbacks and dream sequences, zombies,
lyrics, poetry, letters and journal entries, monologues and soliloquies.
We break all the rules we can in order to climb. And boy, we do climb.
And then for some writers who feel they can get to 50,000 words without
a challenge it is now about quality, and not quantity. They won’t
use the tricks that will get others to the end, they’re dedicated. As
one of these people, I confess that it is very easy for my ego to
overwhelm me- at least it used to. I felt like I was apart of some
superior race or talented tribe and with that came a modicum of fame and
I wanted it and I liked it.
What that meant to me, and others around me who were infected with the
same perception, was that we somehow had more say in the rules
than everyone else. Because we could do more, we meant more and had more
to say about it.
So let me tell you all the rules that NaNoWriMo actually presents to its
participants:
Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
That’s it. That includes everything from top to bottom. At the end of
it, unless you specify otherwise for your own personal gain or loss, you
get a piece of paper that says you achieved it.
And the best thing about this is that you are the only person
profiting from this task. It is your time and effort you put into it,
it is your work at the end of November. Your achievement does not belong
to anyone else- you can play this game however you please.
Competition and peer pressure can lead to one equating their identity
and personality to NaNoWriMo. So when you are challenged and asked to
explain why you do the things you do, and others doing NaNoWriMo claim
things about your work that mean you are not worthy to enjoy such an
experience it can sometimes feel like you are the one who isn’t
worthy, not your work. That you as a human being are wrong and
are to blame. It can really hurt when you attach yourself so tightly to
a project you are so proud of and feel like you are good at, and then
people question you.
I’ve tried to focus on my humility in the last few years and have
dedicated myself to being more open and attentive to others’ experiences
in NaNoWriMo when discussing it instead of throwing myself about like a
self-titled master and guru. We all want to let people know about our
lives and achievements but I finally realised that my influence upon
others wasn’t affirmative. I never intended to overshadow others but
from my own performance people drew conclusions as to how the NaNoWriMo
game should be played and then inflicted those ideas upon others.
Humility means that I am able to enjoy and love my craft, and support
and encourage everyone else.
NaNoWriMo is not who we are, but what we do. It is an adventure that we
each choose to enjoy and relive every November in our own personal way.
So when you ask someone if you’re doing it right then consider why
you’re asking. It may be that at one point in time that you have lost
contact with your creative confidence and are unsure where to turn to.
Any ideas you want to explore, any techniques you want to use, any way
you want to play the game is acceptable. If you want to have one
character and duplicate him or her to get to 50,000 then do so. If you
want to write half a script and half a novel then do so. If you want to
write ten novels then do so. It is your turn to choose what you want and
no one has any say in how you play- just like you have no say in how
they play their game.
The beauty of NaNoWriMo is its freedom from limits. This month is
yours and yours alone. The only restriction you have is the opening
and closing scene. Your story awaits you. And don’t let anyone else
tell you otherwise.
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