yansusustories
Matchmaker of Handsome Men
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2019
- Messages
- 621
- Points
- 133
Thank you!
Well, nobody needs to but if you want to try but feel like the actual NaNo is too much, you could always join the camp instead. You can set your own word count goal there, so whether you go for 10k, 20k, 25k, or even the usual 50k words is completely up to you. Also, if you do it, always keep in mind that this isn't a binding contract. Even if you sign up: If you realize you don't like it at all or something else comes up and you won't finish, it's not the end of the world.
I think NaNo is nice to get started for new authors or people who want to get back into writing after a long break or just writers who like the atmosphere and want that additional motivation of knowing "Yeah, hundreds of thousands of other authors are also slogging their way through their novels right now so I'm not alone". I think it can't hurt to try but it's also alright to quit if you decide it's not for you. It's supposed to be fun after all.
As for the "quality" of the writing: I don't think it's supposed to be a perfect novel at the end of the month. I think NaNo is just supposed to give you text to work with. They have (in February I think?) a month for revisions and editing and that's kind of the point: A ton of people never manage to finish their novels because they're afraid they might not be good enough. They write a chapter or two, go back and edit, maybe write another one, take a break, go back to edit and then maybe rewrite the whole thing because they are never satisfied.
In NaNo, you're supposed to not think about perfection and just write. It's not important even if half of the outcome is utter garbage. You will still have something at the end of just one month. And then you just have to continue doing that until the end and after that is the perfect time to edit the whole thing because by then, you already know where the journey goes (so you can revise the story in a more targeted manner) and you have that experience of having that finished story (which is a huge motivation especially to people who haven't finished any before because it proves that yeah, they can do it!).
So I think not having the quality is kind of the beauty. Most first drafts aren't perfect on their own. They're kind of like diamonds in the rough where you can already see some of that sparkle but you really gotta work on them to give them that polished look.
