Not doing Nanowrimo this year...

[elfs]

I'm not doing Nanowrimo this year because the first five days were eaten alive by my election volunteering and webmastering for some local races, and I'm a little burned out. For the first time in a few weeks, I did manage 2,300 words this past Friday, and another 1500 so far. I even wrote 400 last night while Kouryou-chan was getting ready for bed.

I like Nanowrimo even on the years when I don't do it. I was reading an LJ that I'll keep anonymous where the author was whining and complaining that she doesn't like Nano because, as she put it, "Creativity doesn't come on command."

I'll say this again: Yes. It. Does.

Creativity is a skill. As they're fond of reminding people over at Julliard, the deciding factor between a terrible performer and a great performer isn't innate talent, it isn't creativity, it isn't luck: it's practice. The strongest correlation between musical skill and professional success had nothing to do with innate ability and everything to do with the sheer raw number of hours one put in practicing.

Sorry, this is my biggest pet peeve with writer wannabe's and people who dis nano. You cannot be creative if you don't show up at the typewriter (even the kinds with the television on top) and start banging away at the story.

And "creativity exercises" work. Stuck? Get a big sheet of paper, write down your current stuckness, and then come up with ten ways the characters can unstick the problem. Ten short paragraphs. Pick one. Write it. You might end up throwing it away, but it's better than doing nothing.

I bet I throw away more "driving to the story" chapters (writing a bunch of stuff about the characters before the story actually begins, backstory that eventually gets chopped) in a year than most anti-nano grousers write at all in that same time. Driving to the story has to be one of my worst habits, although it does give me character grounding for later.

Comments

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

My single problem with nano is the colossal sense of failure and stigma that I get if life gets in the way part way through. I'm sorry, but if, unexpectedly, I lose a weekend to a family emergency, and then a week to an 80 hour workweek, I don't need to feel like a failure on top of it.