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

[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.