Happy November, everyone!

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting at a Shut Up and Write. It’s the first Saturday of the month, so the group has a mini marathon going on at this community center at the Bel Air off of Arden. It’s kind of a weird venue, but it’s not bad. The only down side is the wifi is absolute garbage, so I need to use my phone as a hot spot.

Let’s talk about Novel Writing Month, and a little bit about the deceased group, NaNoWriMo.

The organization imploded, for good reasons as far as I’m concerned. First there was the event involving child grooming, which the organization didn’t handle very well. Then the org, strapped for cash, sold its soul to an LLM company and violated the spirit of the month. The organization sucked, but the writers that showed up to the events are awesome, and they’re still out there.

I’m sure at some point this month, I’m going to stumble into a Panera, probably in the evening, where I’ll find a bunch of friends huddled over their laptops.

What becomes of all these stories? Are the words wasted? Is it bad in the first place to put all this effort into writing 50,000 words in 30 days?

I can’t speak for everyone, but my November projects turn into novels that I’m willing to stand by and sell. That’s how The Repossessed Ghost came into being. On the back burner, waiting to find an agent, I also have Spin City and Synthetic Dreams. And three or four other projects which aren’t as far along, but that I have every intention of finishing before I’m done.

Not all NaNoWriMo projects go on to find readers. Not all of them are ever even finished. I’m not sure that matters, though. The act of sitting down and putting words on the page is a reward unto itself. It’s good training, good practice, and in a lot of cases, good just to be out in the world participating with others as part of a community.

But why November? Why aren’t those people writing during the rest of the year?

I remember talking with someone about this, and they were of the opinion that NaNoWriMo is bad, actually, because “it burns people out, and encourages people to only write during November.” That was his assessment, which I disagreed with then, and I disagree with now.

It’s true that some people that show up in November only write during that time. Would those people write at all if NaNoWriMo didn’t exist? Now that the organization is dead, will those people still write in November?

I don’t think they will, because I think those people were showing up for the community. I’m not saying that they’re not writers, but I think they aren’t looking to make writing a career the way I am. I think they’re mostly hobbyists, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Having a little bit of extra external pressure to get words on the page isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s what the month has always been for me, and while my first experience with finishing 50k in 30 days led to me burning out for a little while, I don’t blame NaNoWriMo, or even think my experience was common.

That is to say, as I was writing the first draft of The Repossessed Ghost, I wrote the first 25k words from November 1st through November 26th. I wrote the next 25k from the 27th through the 30th, and that is what burned me out. I didn’t write again until January.

Am I participating this year?

I guess? You’re not going to get a strong commitment out of me right now as I have a lot going on, and my emotions have been an absolute roller coaster. I’m going to try and prioritize writing more this month. I’m going to take each day as they arrive. I really, really want to finish The Psychic Out of Time as soon as I can, but I also want to be kind to myself and not feel too disappointed if I get to the end of the month and there’s still more to do.

Today is the 1st. I’m at Shut Up and Write. I’m going to try and get 2k words written today, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

What are you up to this month?