By HD Silversmith
Okay, it's only the first week of the 30-day NaNoWriMo experience, and already it's been an invaluable experience for me.
As crazy or as [fill in the adjective of your choice] as the premise of NaNoWriMo sounds to the uninitiated (and, until this year, that would have been me), it can be a rather extraordinary crucible of self-discovery for writers.
Now, I've been writing, one way or another, since childhood. Generally I write academic pieces and creative nonfiction (more of the former these days, but that's for lack of time rather than interest). So what are the lessons I'm already learning in this month-long sprint to write 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days?
- The importance of concrete, daily, achievable goals. Even with a full work schedule and other things going on in my life, it's possible to write around 1,700 words (of fiction) a day. It's not always easy, mind you (already I've had good days in which the words flowed and bad days in which I could barely eke them out), but life (and writing) isn't always about what's easy. It's about what's possible -- and more.
- The usefulness of discovering (or sometimes just confirming) what works for me. See my first bullet point. Case in point: it's not that I didn't already understand the value of specific goal-setting (I've written about it here often enough). It's that NaNoWriMo, with its daily word counts and finite duration, underscores the value of that practice to me.
Another example: after only a few days, I've confirmed for myself that my most productive writing time is first thing in the morning. I can still write later in the day or even at night, but without the same level of connection and energy.
- The ever-changing emotional landcape during the writing process. Again, this isn't something new I've learned, but for me it's useful to realize (over and over again now) that this is my process. This is how I work. Sometimes I'm going to feel productive or even talented, and sometimes I'm going to feel like a slug who produces crap -- and neither feeling is particularly objective or truer than the other. When either feeling pops up, it's little more than a single snapshot of an isolated moment.
- The importance of endurance. Story of my life there, actually -- but I'm not going to Go There just now. The thing is, the ability to endure even under extreme circumstances can be a victory in itself. Ask my blistered feet after the 3 Day Susan G. Komen breast cancer walk. Sometimes you win just by showing up and sticking around.
NaNoWriNo teaches writers what they need to know about themselves in order to achieve their goals. Or it can. ( I think it helps to go into it with realistic expectations, knowing what you want to get out of it.)
That's true of any endeavor, of course. And right now, for me, that endeavor is NaNoWriMo!
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