Tales of the Rampant Coyote

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NaNoWriMo No or Yes?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 2, 2015

If you aren’t already involved in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), well, you’ve missed a day or two already, but you can still jump on board.

This is not going to be the month I write a novel. No way, no how. With the work on short stories and the release of Beyond the Wail last month, I’m behind on Frayed Knights 2 and need to devote some concentrated effort to it this month. Unless I find myself with some more editing that I have to do with stories already in the pipeline. Maybe there’ll be a novel next year, but serious effort on anything of that size is going to have to wait for Frayed Knights.

There’s some criticism being leveled at NaNoWriMo, but to me, that’s like criticizing Game Jams. Are the results at the end of November, with the goals of 50k word count, going to be awesome, ready-to-publish works of art? Heck, no. It’s a good exercise, a good start, and could end up with something that – with considerably more work – could be of commercial value. That’s the process, but getting stuff down on paper in the first draft is a critical early step. And there’s something about setting a hard goal and working for it in a disciplined manner that’s of incredible value, probably more so than the end product.

Although I should add that author J. D. Spero has some legitimate but amusing gripes with NaNoWriMo that I enjoyed. Mainly… why November? December might have been the only worse choice of months, although with only 28 days February’s not great, either.

I think it’s a great tool for first-time novelists, but  I think it’s more than that. I know some published authors who also take advantage of it in order to create momentum. We can all use all the help we can. But in the end, it’s a support and encouragement mechanism, not a limit.

Maybe next year. But for the immediate future,  if anybody needs me, I’ll be down in the dungeons making things that are trying to kill me. Please send food. Possibly a rescue party.


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