I do NaNoWriMo for several reasons; but I think the foremost among those is that every single year I have done it, NaNo has managed to teach me something about writing and about myself as a writer.
My first year back in 2012, when I completed NaNoWriMo, and was declared a winner, I realized that I could do this writing thing. Before that point, I knew I could write and that according to most of my professors, posed some form of skill in the written word. But I didn't know that I could write fiction. It had always been something I thought and talked about, but aside from some poorly thought out and executed stories, had never taken off the ground.
That first year of NaNoWriMo proved to me that I had the ability to take a small idea in my head and expound it into something 50,000 words long that resembled a novel. Albeit with a plot that meandered and never finished. But it had action. And setting. And dialogue. And characters. And for the first time, I began to consider myself an amateur writer, writing as a hobby and a possible career. (I say hobby and I am careful to label myself as a "writer" but that is a whole nother blog post).
The second thing that first year taught me was that I have the ability to write. That's it. What I don't posses are the skills (or if I do they are unrefined) to take writing (and my passion for telling a story) and turn it into publishable materials.
As a result, I began to educate myself. My father had always balked at buying me "noveling" books during phases in my youth because he would tell me, "The way to get better at writing is to write. Not read a book on it." And he was half right. Had I not sat down and typed out 60,000 words in a month we would not be having this discussion. But he was wrong as well. I needed an education in writing. I needed to learn the art/science of writing fiction.
So I began to seek out those materials. I began to read books on the art of story crafting. I began to watch creative writing lectures on youtube. I began to listen to podcasts like Writing Excuses and I Should be Writing. I read blog posts and Q&As by my favorite authors on the writing process. I would've loved to have taken a B.F.A. in Creative Writing course, but had to settle with picking my old college professors (who also taught creative writing) brains whenever they would let me. I began to pay attention when I read, watching what the author did rather than for pure entertainment. The author's books that I enjoyed I would read over and over; pouring over their chapter structure, how they created dialogue and how they would set up plot twists. Something I rarely did when I was just a reader.
I joined writing forums, and recently Scribophile (how did you elude me till now!?!?!?) and was brave enough to get people to critique my writing and strong enough to take it when they tore it apart. Even if they didn't get my "vision". Even if they were my wife.
My second year taught me that I needed to learn how to plan. My first year I went in guns blazing and though divine intervention, my story stayed with me long enough to come to somewhat of a conclusion. I was a "pantser" and I looked down my nose at those poor OCD souls who had to plan their novels. Where was the surprise in that?
But then as I began to learn about "pantsers" and planners, I began to realize that while I was capable of writing as a pantser, my stories were limited by the lack of direction.
My first year I had enough momentum to propel past that final word count. And had I managed to close all the loose threads, I was looking at a word count that would make Brandon Sanderson look like Dr. Seuss. Last year I found myself floundering after my introduction. My plot (and I) quickly lost steam and I finished with a word count of around 35,000.
I learned that I have to incubate my ideas. I can't just take the idea and pull a full novel out of it by writing like a madman. Some writers can. I can't. And I would have never learned that about myself had I not participated in NaNoWriMo.
I am looking forward to this NaNoWriMo. I've got my story (and my doubts about it too) and I've done
