Reflections on National Novel Writing Month
I started a book from scratch (as long as "sequel" counts from scratch) five days into the month, and I'm less than ten thousand words from hitting the fifty thousand mark. Most of it is, indeed, crap. Crappy poo poo, to be exact. And that is the point. If I can produce a heap of steaming crap in a month, imagine what one can do if one takes the discipline practiced during NaNoWriMo and applies that to actual writing. I have learned that NaNoWriMo is not a step towards Getting Published. It is an exercise in developing the discipline to write daily so that one has enough material and experience that one could, possily, have a glass of wine with dinner.
Wine with dinner? What is she talking about? Here is what I wrote yesterday in an author's note:
Because today I realized that publication is not the icing on the cake. It’s less sweet than that. No, publication is far more like the wine that is selected to go with dinner. The writing is the dinner it self. The wine, however, can make it more enjoyable, but you’ll still need to eat the actual dinner, wine or not. When we focus on the wine only and not the dinner it self, however, we are focusing on the wrong thing and risk becoming addicted to something that makes us mess up the way we walk, makes us unable to drive legally, and in general messes with our heads big time. And that which is written by the writer drunk on desire for the wine of publication is in general not as vital and basic and sustaining as that dinner, that writing, that good stuff that makes the wine enjoyable, that stuff that the wine sets off.
But I can live forever without the wine. (In real life, I need to stop eating so much, so that kind of tells me something about how a writer can become addicted to anything if she/he really wants to, even just the writing process). I need to focus on balancing my desire for the actual substance of the meal while still asking for wine with dinner. Maybe I’ll get that glass of a very good wine. Then again, maybe not. But at least I need to make sure that I don't starve.
Here endeth the lesson.
Wine with dinner? What is she talking about? Here is what I wrote yesterday in an author's note:
Because today I realized that publication is not the icing on the cake. It’s less sweet than that. No, publication is far more like the wine that is selected to go with dinner. The writing is the dinner it self. The wine, however, can make it more enjoyable, but you’ll still need to eat the actual dinner, wine or not. When we focus on the wine only and not the dinner it self, however, we are focusing on the wrong thing and risk becoming addicted to something that makes us mess up the way we walk, makes us unable to drive legally, and in general messes with our heads big time. And that which is written by the writer drunk on desire for the wine of publication is in general not as vital and basic and sustaining as that dinner, that writing, that good stuff that makes the wine enjoyable, that stuff that the wine sets off.
But I can live forever without the wine. (In real life, I need to stop eating so much, so that kind of tells me something about how a writer can become addicted to anything if she/he really wants to, even just the writing process). I need to focus on balancing my desire for the actual substance of the meal while still asking for wine with dinner. Maybe I’ll get that glass of a very good wine. Then again, maybe not. But at least I need to make sure that I don't starve.
Here endeth the lesson.
posted by Erin McCole-Cupp at 6:29 AM
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