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

[jane_potter]

You are an awesome signalbooster. I hadn't even see the Salon article before now, but frankly that article just made me all the more determined to finish me NaNo. I am not one of the people who can or will ever be dissuaded from writing, but on behalf of those who, without the support of all you signalboosters and cheerleaders out there, might have given up in the face of this incomprehensible negativity, thank you. Thank you. *hugs*

Edit: Wait, sorry, I just found something else that needed to be shared:


What I particularly like was some of the comments on Miller's article saying how NaNo was actually a harmful experience because it makes aspiring writers realise how bad they are at it. Yes, really.

[yeomanrand.livejournal.com]

What I particularly like was some of the comments on Miller's article saying how NaNo was actually a harmful experience because it makes aspiring writers realise how bad they are at it. Yes, really.

....wat?

(3,380 and counting)

[jane_potter]

To quote a seriously delusional "nick_r":

"But for the group it [NaNoWriMo] seems most geared to (non-writers who have always wanted to take a stab at it), I think it could cause real harm. Think about it -- you've never written much before, and now here you are driving yourself crazy for a month to fill hundreds of pages with whatever you can think of. That brief sense of accomplishment at the end is nice, I'm sure, but what happens once you look back at what you've written and realize how dreadful it is? Or when no one else wants to read more than a hundred words of it? The natural inclination at that point would be to go right back into your shell and stay there. And that's a shame, because if you'd tried dipping a toe in the pool (writing a short story, an essay or two, a one-act play, etc.) you might have had a better chance at cultivating the creative seed within, and gradually becoming an actual writer."

Wait, let me say that again.

AN ACTUAL WRITER.

Get out of my garden, nick_r; I'll cultivate it however I goddamn want. And while I'm at it, I'll gradually make myself an actual woman and an actual casual scribler-artist and an actual tea drinker, too.

[yeomanrand.livejournal.com]

I agree with your icon and with your comment. In a mild interest in "being fair", I suppose he could mean "a published writer" as opposed to "an actual writer," but even still.

NO.

I have failed at NaNo every year I've participated in it (since...2006, I think? Maybe 2005? I forget). But every year, I've learned something, and I sincerely doubt shinychimera and I would have completed our behemoth "In for Repairs" story if the two of us didn't have our (incomplete) NaNos under our belt.

I have no appropriate icons for this. My "Piss off, reading" icon doesn't work.

[elmathelas.livejournal.com]

When I'm writing for nanowrimo, since I'm writing to a deadline and with purpose as opposed to waiting for a flight of fancy to just take me and wing me headlong into a fully formed fic (which does happen, but oh so rarely) I feel like I'm constantly writing against a strong tide of thoughts of THIS SUCKS I SUCK THIS SUCKS OMG THIS SUCKS but I keep going, and I think that, more than anything else, is worth the experience. If I can get over being my own worst enemy, even if just for a month, that's an accomplishment that no amount of nay-saying can take away from me.


Ha Ha! I say. Realize that.

[jane_potter]

PREACH. *fistbumps*

[re-white.livejournal.com]

Beautiful icon.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*nod* I also have to crawl over huge mental boulders of "I'm wasting time / so and so whom I respect doesn't like this kind of story/I should wash the dishes instead / I SUCK I SUCK I SUCK" every time I write. Poisonous "advice" like the Salon piece is one more boulder; sensible encouragement like the LA Times piece is a lever to wedge the boulders back out of the way.

[boosette.livejournal.com]

I'm actually not doing NaNo this year specifically because the last three attempts wound me up with tendonitis, so the pace, and the brilliant many-thousands-of-words-per-day games of catch-up with write-or-die are physically bad for me, but to others who can finish I say:

MORE POWER TO YOU GO GO GO!!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blushes and hugs you back* Thank you, and you're very welcome.

Also, ICON OF TRUTH.