Count Down to NaNoWriMo

I have been in a writing funk recently. No blogging, no short stories, novels, vignettes, not even Facebook updates. But here I am blogging again and it is all Anne's fault. Camp NaNo is looming on the horizon, ready to eat various faces come August and damned if I am ready for it. For all of the haters out there who think NaNo is a waste of time, I applaud you on finding the right way to spend time and then would invite you to kindly piss off.

This isn't for you.

This is for the people who like writing, like events, and like doing things and not feel like they are doing it alone.

NaNo rarely allows someone to spit out a new novel, shiny and fresh and ready for print. As a matter of fact, I would hazard a conservative guess that it almost never allows for it. But that is hardly the point. The point is words on the page. Whether they are electrons or hand ground ink, they are words that you are stringing together into a narrative.

That 50k mark seems like a big monolith for a lot of new writers. Hell, 50k in a month can look like a lot to even a seasoned writer. But what it does for the new writer is it tells them whether they have what it takes to get over that first hump of writing out the first paragraph of a story. It is a chance, a reason, or an excuse to try to write. It is easier for a lot of people to make time to do something if they say "I am doing it because of X."

There are some people who say 'Well if they really loved writing then people would make time for it. They wouldn't need an excuse.'

To that I say bollocks. There are innumerable things that people love doing that they put off in order to do things that are deemed more important. Like work, or raise children, or just the million tiny things that Life, in its infinite fuckery, likes to throw at you in order to sap away your energy.

NaNo is for those people. It is a chance to get the other judgmental tsk-tskers in their lives, who normally frown on what are deemed 'frivolous pursuits', off their backs by giving them something to point to. What is not needed are new people to come in and replace one group of finger waggers for another.

So this year, put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and write. Write long and hard. NaNo is for everyone, so play the game and you might just have some fun.