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Featured: NaNoWriMo Is What You Make of It

“It's all about quantity over quality.”
“It pins author against author.”
“It's like sprinting in a marathon.”

All of these negative comments (and many more) have been thrown at the annual writing challenge NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month) and its participants. Accusers have pinned NaNo as a competition between writers to see who can simply write the fastest or the most, with no regard to actual story quality. But what exactly is NaNoWriMo to those people who do choose to participate, and not just the naysayers who are outside looking in?

Why NaNo?

We all know the traps and pitfalls of creative writing. Sometimes you get a little stuck, so you decide to move on to something else. Sometimes you've got hours sprawled ahead of you and you think, 'Maybe I'll just take a second and see what's up on Tumblr. I've got time,' and before know it, all your free time has been used up. Sometimes you've set time aside to write, a friend invites you out, and you think, 'Well, I don't have to do this right now, I'll just get started later,' and then you never do. So for many writers, the appeal of participating in NaNoWrimo is the use of a deadline (November 30th), a time limit (30 days), and a tangible goal (50,000 words) to propel them into making space in their schedules and fighting distractions and procrastination when it comes to their creative writing.

What NaNoWriMo does is give you a reason to really get started and a time frame in which you have to do it. When you're working with a deadline, you're less likely to leave it 'til 'tomorrow' and more likely to make room for it where you can. This month-long challenge helps WriMers figure out a way to fit writing into their schedule and to do so regularly.

Quality Control

One argument against NaNoWriMo extends from the imposed word count goal. For some, the simple existence of word count automatically means that people are only doing it for the word count. NaNoWriMers know better.

WriMers agree, NaNo is not the end. NaNo's purpose is to help writers get it out, to get their ideas on paper, to start the actual process of physically writing their novel. In other words, its purpose is to get the ball rolling. And during the month, writers are encouraged to just write, let the words flow, and not edit...yet. But once the month's over, NaNo also encourages writers to continue on with their projects, to start the often arduous task of editing, which often includes weeks and months (and sometimes years) of re-reading, re-planning, and re-writing.

Overall, NaNo is in no way just about the word count. It's just a way to help writers get over the major hurdle of seriously starting their novel writing process. The NaNoWriMo 50,000 is simply a milestone. It is something to aspire to. It is a fixated point all participants can look at and reach out to. The number, and the month, hardly represents all the work, effort, and time Wrimers will invest in their novels.

As stated by Mibba's The Rumor, “NaNo is merely putting down the skeleton of your novel so that you can flesh it out and make it a full-functioning story afterwards.”

Challenge vs. Contest

Another argument against NaNoWriMo is that it's just another contest that encourages writers to compete against each other and compare themselves to others, rather than focus on their own work. Anyone who's fully participated in NaNoWriMo can tell you that this isn't true.

Caravaggio, a Mibbian who frequently utilizes the Mibba NaNo thread, has said, “The rest of the people doing NaNo are fellow comrades in this crazy month. They're people you go to for help when you need it, and comfort when you feel like you're going to lose your mind.” The NaNo community – the thread on Mibba, the fans on Tumblr and Twitter, and those who frequent the official site – are all writers working towards a common goal, going through the same stressors, hitting the same roadblocks, and trying their best to get over one of the bigger stepping stones in writing a novel.

There's several different ways Wrimers can interact with and help each other which can be specifically found on the NaNoWriMo forums. From joined word sprints (when a group of participants set aside a small but specific amount of time in which they simply write – no stopping, no editing, no distractions, just writing) and other group writing activities, to sharing prompts, to helping each other with researching facts and experiences for their stories, to simply offering words of encouragement and tips to writers who are having trouble moving along. It's all about helping everyone to the finish line.

The NaNo environment, with the way the challenge is set up, isn't a particularly competitive one. Any-and every-one who completes the task 'wins.' There is no curve. If Caravaggio completes NaNo, she wins. And if The Rumor completes NaNo, she wins as well. And if 200,500* Wrimers hit the goal this year, they'll all have won too. There is no cap on how many people can be winners of NaNoWriMo, and there's no sliding scale. The only person that any of the participants are 'competing' against is his or herself. This is why NaNo is more of a challenge than an actual contest or competition.

“NaNoWriMo is about testing yourself, to see if you can do it, to challenge yourself,” says Mibba's Quinntessential Bella, another NaNo 2011 participant. NaNoWriMo isn't about beating out other writers or being “better” than other writers. It's about helping writers work towards their personal goal of finishing their novel.

The Marathon

The final, and possibly most persistent, argument against NaNoWriMo is that it purportedly convinces writers that a full and completed novel can happen in one tiny month. But the truth is, for most NaNoWriMo's, the challenge starts well before the month of November and continues on well after it.

On Mibba, this year's NaNoWriMo thread was posted over a month in advance. During the end of September and the entire month of October, Mibbians shared, exchanged, and sketched out story ideas. They planned, plotted, and otherwise worked on what would become their NaNo novels. And even so, for many Mibbian WriMers, not even the posting of the NaNo thread marked the inception of their novels and the planning they put into it. For many, the stories they put to paper during NaNo are stories they've been dying to tell for months and, for some, even years. For those participants, NaNo is hardly a sprint. It's just a singular lap in their writing marathon.

In the end, NaNoWriMo is simply an idea and what each participant makes of it is all his or her own. For many participants, especially among those on Mibba, NaNoWriMo provides a structure and the helpful (and possibly necessary) push to complete a project they've always wanted to work on. For other WriMers, the challenge provides a supportive environment which encourages them to make time, in such a busy and hectic world, for something they love: writing.