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Friday, December 05, 2008

No novel writing month

well. . .
I survived the great NaNoWriMo -- by not participating -- again. I don't know what it is about these absurd arbitrary deadlines that makes me balk. Perhaps I'm just being pragmatic.
Any way it went by and once again I didn'd writ a novel. this year I even signed up, so if I could post something if I had written it. but i was not inspired. Actually I had a sense of relief because after the first day, I knew that I had no intention of writing a novel that month. I admit that I am lazy in that respect, that I am justifying inactivity with a sense of self assuredness, and that I'm not going to get anywhere with that kind of attitude, but i think that the right thing to do is give up when you over-commit. I've taken on excessive work before, particularly in school, where iwas taking 18 credit hours one semester and working two part time jobs. some times the right thing to do is say no, or pass the job on to someone else. While I managed OK in school, there were other times when I knew I couldn't finish all the papers I had unless I buckled down, and I would just not do it. I was obsessing all the time about writing this or that, or maniacally running over conversations in my mind about how this should be worded, an how wonderful it would be if i did write it. But I'd never get stuff done. It was all a kind of fantasy that I was doing all this writing in my head while i put nothing on paper.
The Idea behind writing a novel in a month is not really as far fetched as people seem to think. the reality is that a professional writer gets about three or four months to write a book and get it to a publisher and most people (even writers) are prone to a lot of thinking about writing before they actually put stuff on paper. The thinking and pre-editing tends to get in the way of good ideas and real creativity.




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