Apparently it is my day to signalboost.

[browngirl]

This is for everyone doing National Novel Writing Month. I've done NaNoWriMo in the past and may again in the future; I loved it.

I've also been dismayed when people inevitably try to dissuade people from participating in it, saying that one can do "better" things, such as Ms. Miller on Salon, who somehow assumes that NaNo participants aren't also reading and suggests that people should read 10 novels in November instead of writing one.

It boggles my mind that anyone who writes could manage not to understand that writing and reading satisfy different urges for many people, but, well, I try not to make a hobby of ordering people to cease participating in an activity that pleases them and harms no one. So.

If you're doing NaNoWriMo this year, I advise you to ignore the people telling you not to, maybe read this instead and above all else write if you want to. Writing, like all creativity, feeds the soul; the people trying to dissuade you from it are trying to starve you, and you deserve to be nourished. (Yes, that's a cheesy metaphor, but I earnestly mean it.)

Comments

[canis-takahari.livejournal.com]

Discouraging someone to do anything that they're excited about has never made any sense to me. I will always make this face in response:

>:|

Telling someone to read instead of write when people have the capacity to do BOTH is just fucking ridiculous. Why read 10 novels instead? Why not do both? Or, you know, stop telling people what to do? I write because I want to write. Sometimes that means I don't want to read, and sometimes that means when I got bored or frustrated with writing, I will read something instead.

[yeomanrand.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that it's the rare person indeed who reads fast enough to get through 10 novels in a month. I read very quickly, and I'm not sure I could do that! (Well, unless they were all very short novels, or om nom nom beach fare or something, but still.)

Though this does remind me that I need to go to the bookstore and pick up Red Hood's Revenge.

[canis-takahari.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I didn't even think of that, you're right! I read fairly slowly if I'm really enjoying a book because I tend to savour the writing. 10 novels in a month would be really stretching it for me, unless they were all teeny-tiny.