ETA: Go vote tomorrow. Seriously. I don’t care for whom you vote (well, yes I do, but it’s still your choice, damn it)–just vote.
This is a mash-up post of all the things floating in my head. I am kinda tossing them all in one entry because I can.
First of all, I am doing NaNoWriMo again this year. I have done it for the past three years, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again. Why? Well, the goal of it is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. As y’all know, writing a lot of words is NOT a problem for me. Hell, I average 2,500 words in one blog entry. For the past three NaNoWriMos (and I’ve won all three, despite what their site says, and no, I’m not OCD about it, not at all), I hit the 50,000 words mark around the tenth day of the month. I usually don’t talk about it with other people doing NaNoWriMo because I know how it sounds. NaNoWriMo has been good for me, though, because it encouraged (OK, forced, but that’s just because of my own OCD) me to write every day for a month.
However, as to the main goal of NaNoWriMo, it’s not an accomplishment for me if it’s something I can do easily. That’s why I debated this year as to whether I would do NaNoWriMo again or not. Yes, it’s a good motivator, but if ultimately it doesn’t push me to the next step (publishing), then it’s really basically a masturbatory exercise for me. Now, while I have nothing against masturbation (believe you me), in this case, it’s not particularly productive.
I talked with friends about it. I mused about it. I had decided not to do it this year. It really felt like just a way to be doing something for the sake of doing something. Then, I thought, what if I changed the goal? Just because the stated purpose is to reach a certain word count, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a different goal–as long as I meet the stated one, of course.
So. This year’s personal goal for NaNoWriMo is to have a publishable novel by the end of the month. In the past, I have written novels during the month, only to shove them in a metaphorical drawer and not submit them for publication. I still may at some point, but it’s self-defeating to write them and then just let them sit. I have done that with many works I’ve written, which means I’m only engaging in half the activity of writing–the creative and fun half (the actual writing). Next step is to submit and/or self-publish.
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