Nanowrimo...was it worth it for you?

kendallina said:

For those of you that have participated in Nanowrimo, did you find that it helped you?

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Nope.

Did writing that much help your writing get better?

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No, not really. I mean, I wasn't used to writing that much and I got a little stressed because I was afraid I wouldn't reach the 50.000 words.
The story I wrote ended up being mostly garbage, and I wrote some non-fiction as well that turned out the same.

Did it help you to get a Butt-in-Chair attitude that lasted beyond November?

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Sigh....no.

Is what you wrote worth the effort of editing ......?

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Definitely not. I tried and I tried, but I haven't got the skill yet to save it. Perhaps I'll never have. Maybe it can't be saved. I don't really care anymore.


It was still fun though, and I did learn something about writing, but I found that it was very easy to put both other writing and other things aside,
so I had a lot of katching up to do when the month was over. Not participating this year.

Good luck whatever you choose.

I'll throw this out there among the rest of the comments:

Whether NaNo works depends on a writer's style and their technique.

Consider how you write well. If you can't write well at speed, it might frustrate you to attempt such a mad cap pace.

I'll be honest, I tried it from 05 to 09. I made the 50K mark without a hitch. (60K one year even.) Of the five, Two books will never leave the trunk, two are possibles that are half done, and one I've shredded down from 55K to 17K.

So its all a matter of personal taste and perspective.
What works for one may or may not work for another.

Just my twopence.

For me, I did find it helpful. I did a "modified" WriMo last year, in which I picked up a book I'd begun in 2005 and attempted to finish it. I didn't "win" but it did get me writing again, breaking an almost seven year long bout of writers' block. Although I did have to do heavy editing of the book, I've actually finished the manuscript, which is something I'd never managed to do before.

I think if you look at it as a motivator to get the words OUT, rather than turning out anything that you will be able to use without heavy editing, it's great. Obviously anything you write in that short of a time with an eye to wordcount is going to need work... but as an incentive to just get started and stop stressing out about the little things, it was invaluable to me.

Just a note: It isn't necessarily true that writing fast and getting a high word count means the story will need heavy edits afterwards.

I know some writers here on AW who regularly write 100k a month, and they write well when they do it. As in, selling that particular novel with a basic edit.

So fast writing doesn't have to mean terrible writing. Just throwing that out there.

Yeah, I can agree with that.

It seems to me that the best way to do it is to *try* to write to the best of your ability, even if you're writing faster than usual. But that's why I said fast writing doesn't have to mean terrible writing.

Cliff Face said:

Just a note: It isn't necessarily true that writing fast and getting a high word count means the story will need heavy edits afterwards.

I know some writers here on AW who regularly write 100k a month, and they write well when they do it. As in, selling that particular novel with a basic edit.

So fast writing doesn't have to mean terrible writing. Just throwing that out there.

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I agree. I don't type any faster than usual, but I do make more time for writing and I use the whole of that time. No faffing about. But the key thing is, I do more outlining than usual so I'm very clear on what I'm writing, and can crack on without stopping to wonder what happens next. I might be less inclined to fix typos on the fly, but the spell checker fixes most of those anyway.

I've never seen an increase in the amount of editing needed. (Well except this one fanfic I did for NaNo 2009, where I rewrote 2/3 of it later, but that thing was flawed from the start. I should never have written it!)

It is really a question of time. I don't write faster, I just write longer. And, honestly, 2k is not much for me to write in a day. It takes me less than 2 hours. I think a 50k month is more or less a standard writing month for me - I wrote that last month, have already got to 47k this month, and felt fairly comfortable about it.

Oh, I'm sure some people don't have any problems churning out decent manuscripts at that pace.

I just can't do it. The current MS that I'm working on revising started out as a NaNo originally and I found I had to cut out the largest chunks of "padding" from the sections I'd written in November.

I found it helped light a fire under my ass for the actual WIP I'm working on. Before NaNo, I had barely done anything on it. After NaNo, I cranked out over 50k on my WIP after attempting another story with NaNo.

It can be a good motivational tool. I don't worry about the grammar or story too much with NaNo. I just tried to get into the habit of writing reguarly, which I wasn't before.

I did nano 2 years ago and 'won' but got only half a novel. I finished it that christmas break. I then put it away and only this last month or so have I taken it out to tinker with. it's rough, it needs work, but I enjoyed rereading it.

Course that doesn't tell me anything about how anyone else would perceive it.

This year..I'm in my last but one semester at school and doing clinicals. Its hectic. I'm debating trying for an abbreviated nano, or for a Christmas Nano. After all, I don't need to be bound by the rules that says it has to be in November. Then again, the companionship is a good motivator. Not sure what to do there.

kendallina said:

For those of you that have participated in Nanowrimo, did you find that it helped you? It did in respects to getting me to sit down and attempt to write a novel.

Did writing that much help your writing get better? It gave me an idea of what it takes to write a novel and in that way yes, it did. This time around will probably go a bit more smoothly- I hope.

Did it help you to get a Butt-in-Chair attitude that lasted beyond November? Unfortunately no, that's why I'm doing it again this year. The whole group challenge thing is what got me to write...well, not every day because I skipped quite a few of them last November, but I was much more consistent/disciplined than I usually am. I do need to find a way to keep that going.

Is what you wrote worth the effort of editing or was it just too messy to mess with The structure was good and the plot was there but the writing itself...it had it's moments where it wasn't too bad but on the whole, hot mess only begins to describe it. There are sections where I'm basically talking to myself, pages and pages of nothing but dialogue then pages and pages of nothing but exposition. Even when it was a good mix, most of it came across as a five year old wrote it. The storyline wasn't so great that I felt it was worth the time and effort to salvage it. But like I said above, I learned from it.

I'm considering doing Nanowrimo this year, but I feel like I'm in a good place with what I'm currently writing, so I'm not sure I want to put it aside for the month. So, any feedback you have about it would be great!

These questions apply even for those that didn't complete the 50,000 words...

Thanks! You're welcome

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Hope this helps.

3ImpossibleThings said:

This year..I'm in my last but one semester at school and doing clinicals. Its hectic. I'm debating trying for an abbreviated nano, or for a Christmas Nano.

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I saw someone posting about doing this (December NaNo) on the NaNo boards, for a similar reason (unless that was you?). So you might have some company if you did.