Wednesday, October 31, 2012

My Reasons For NaNo-ing In 2012

It's that time of year again. November. National Novel Writing Month. NaNo is to writers what Christmas is to kids. Exciting. Long anticipated. Over far too quickly.

At the beginning, thirty days seem like enough time. 1,666 words a day don't seem so difficult to manage. After all, the writing doesn't have to be at Shakespearean levels of greatness. Basically, we only need to put words on paper. Fifty thousand of them, not even the length of a standard novel. It's the first half of a first draft. In my case, a very rough first draft. No editing allowed, at least for me, otherwise I won't  make it to fifty thousand. 


Which is exactly what I need right now. I've gotten into this habit of editing while writing, which kills the famous Flow. Something to do with left-brain vs. right-brain activity: one side is active when being creative and actually writing down your story, the other is active while editing. Try doing both at the same time, and your brain-halves get deadlocked, creating the infamous Writer's Block. 


Obviously, I'm no brain-brainiac, but that's the gist of it. So I'm planning on using this year's NaNo to break this obstructive, perfectionistic habit of mine and just write. It's a great incentive, because I only have a couple of hours a day to write, max, and if I start editing during that time I won't manage even the 1,666 words per day. 


So from tomorrow on, that's my mission: A month of all writing, no editing.
All fun, no brakes. 



See you on the other side and may the Words be with you.


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