A Personal Study of This One’s Experience with NaNoWriMo

I’m going to get the bragging out of the way: my word count upon writing this article was at 13,759 and constantly growing—more than anything I’ve ever written in any single story since the beginning of my pursuit of writing.

Now, in the words of Chris in the morning: “It’s not the thing you fling but the fling itself.”

So what the hell does this random quote have to do with writing? Those of you who’ve seen a number of episodes Northern Exposure know that Chris’s artistic mantra is something to the effect of, “It’s not about the product—it’s about the process.”

I can tell you right now that the product of this ordeal will be 50,000+ words both (in terms of grammar) coherently and incoherently mashed together, full of meaning and meaninglessness, both useful and useless prose. In other words, it will be a great number of novels on the shelves today. I’ll get it published or I won’t. That’s all folks, hasta la vista, game over. Or not.

The process is the most interesting part, in my opinion. Although everyone who participates in this national challenge goes through similar tribulations throughout the course of November (as evidenced by the numerous pep talks I’ve received from past winners), for each and every person it is a struggle, a conflict with one’s self—wrestling with one’s demons, you could say.

It’s the process that gives one of the most eternal gifts, something that can’t be erased from one’s being. I’ll elaborate later.

So what was my process like for week one?

Let me begin by telling you a little about myself.

One of my friends gave me a wonderful quote:

“There are two kinds of writers: blurters and bleeders. The blurters barf up all the words they have. The bleeders agonize over every single word.”

I am a bleeder.

It’s not so much that I can’t think of words that I can use—it’s more like I know there’s the perfect word out there that would fit exactly in the jigsaw puzzle of my prose or poetry, conveying exactly the idea or set of ideas that I want it to. And I am almost uncompromising in my search for that particular word. On the up side, my vocabulary has grown, I frequently get compliments for my ability to describe experiences that one takes for granted, and my finished product is already polished. On the downside, it takes me forever to get anything done, my works might end up stilted and stiff, and I don’t ever want to see my story again because it was so painful to write.

NaNoWriMo requires one to blurt, to a massive extent. I’ve had to do a complete 180 on my approach to writing. Naturally, this entirely new threshold is fertile ground for very familiar demons.

Procrastination: We all fall victim to this bad boy at least once in our lives. It became increasingly difficult for me to resist the lure of, “The day’s only just begun! You can get to your story later, say sometime this evening.” In fact, I’ve fallen victim to his sweet words a number of times—quite often, I’ve struggled to finish my daily quota of words after just after midnight, when my daily quota is already obsolete.

What I do to beat him is simple (but never easy): whenever I get the chance to really sit and work, I begin on my story, using Industriousness as a weapon.

Complacency: This one, Procrastination’s wife, is constantly whispering in my ear. The cruel fact is that her voice is that of comfort, of tempting compromise. “It’s late, you’ve had a long day, and tomorrow will be better. What you’ve got so far is a lot of words, anyway, worthy of a writer such as yourself, so why don’t you catch up on the other thousand tomorrow?” I’ve fallen victim to her, too. The next day almost never proves to be any better, and then I had to write 2,670 words rather than 1,670. Even now, she still insists, “Wow, over 13,000 words. Congratulations. If you like, you can stop now. That is quite an accomplishment.”

The way I deal with this particular demon is by wielding Restlessness, an abundant resource in my case. If I ever begin feeling content enough with where I am, I summon up that feeling and that does the trick.

Criticism: Her voice grates more than just my senses—it seems to send my thoughts into an abyss and my mind into a great whorl of frustration. “Good god, that passage sucked! Don’t use that same word so many times! There are plenty more words than ‘said’ to express dialogue, you know! Go back and edit this pile of utter crap!” She is a powerful demon, especially for artists who constantly seek improvement.

To her I parry with Discipline, strictly continuing onward and staunchly ignoring her wicked words.

Hopelessness: Now, this one, this one bugs me to no extent. He is Complacency’s younger brother, the one who drones an endless dirge of killjoy. “What? 50,000 words? That’s way too much. You can’t do it. You have three jobs and you’re going to school. You can barely wake up in the morning with a full night’s sleep—there’s no way you can go on any less.” He is perhaps the one I resist the most because I know it’ll be he who’ll be stay by my side the rest of my life if I decide to give up.

For him I use Gumption—although everything Hopelessness says may be true, I still attack the story each and every time regardless of whether I think I’m going to finish it or not.

Ambition: One would think that I’d get sick of stories and writing by now, that I would be so drained by all this effort in getting everything down. On the contrary! This challenge has been a wellspring of inspiration for me, for all sorts of different projects. That’s where Ambition comes in, with his greedy look and reedy voice. “Forget that story, pay attention to all these others! They’re gonna be great, and now you know you can actually get it done!” He exploits my inspiration and plays on my creativity to try and get me to lose focus.

His counter is Patience. I continually have to remind myself that this challenge is just for one month and I will have all the time in the world to work on the other creative projects.

Every NaNoWriMo participant encounters these demons in one form or another and, as you can tell, warding them off is no picnic. All of the tools, weapons, and counters that I mentioned require fuel: the force of will. It’s a very simple thing, but not very easy to come by—especially since one must provide it perpetually lest these defenses collapse. But (as many NaNos discover), if one can sustain one’s will for such a project, there are fewer limits to whatever else one can do.

About the author

Meg is one who mourns for the loss when the Muse is absent; no other sorrow feels deeper. She is one who elates when the Muse is present, guiding her mind; no other joy feels greater. In short, Meg is a sucker.