2 posts tagged “writing”
We’re already into the second week of September and I realize that NaNoWriMo is almost here. That’s right – the National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you write 50,000 words in the month of November. That comes out to 1,667 words a day and produces a novel the size of The Catcher in the Rye or Brave New Worlds.
I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo for the last 3 years running, and each time I was able to cross the finish line on November 30th in excess of 50,000 words, but I’m a little worried this year. You see, I tried to use April as my ApNoWriMo, or April Novel Writing Month, and I failed miserably. I did have a respectable showing, coming in at 38, 319 words, but that was after extending the deadline to May 15th. I was barely over 33k by the end of April.
That’s not going to keep me from participating during November this year, but it does make me wonder. I’d like to think that I’ll blow through it again this year, but I guess time will tell.
Honestly, I don’t know what I’m worried about. My NaNoWriMo novels are not the next great American novel, but a couple of them have been pretty decent. And ultimately, that was why I stopped working on my novel in April. Honestly, it sucked. So it makes me wonder, is it better to keep going on a crappy novel or is it better to quit and move onto other, better, projects?
Well, I think it’s a little of both. One of the most fundamental, immutable rules of being a writer is that you have to write. Period. There’s no discussion, no debate. You have to get words on paper – or at least a computer screen – if you want to even harbor the notion that you’re a writer. That being said, there are a million and one excuses that all keep us from writing. Like, I’m going to quit writing this crappy novel and work on more important projects. If you’re going to really do that, then more power to you. I just know that for me, those other projects will be changing light bulbs or cooking or a hundred other little things that usually go unheeded during the month of November.
So for me, I’m going to try to push through and finish this November, no matter how crappy it becomes. Remember, you heard it here first.
I’d never heard of a drabble until I started listening to The Drabblecast, an online podcast of short stories. They start off many of their episodes with a drabble before they get into their main feature. So what is a drabble, you ask. It’s a short story of exactly 100 words. Not 99; not 101; one hundred.
And they’re fun. So, I tried my hand at writing them. They’re a little hard to write because they’re so darned quick, but that’s also what makes them so easy to listen to.
I ended up with a few and sent them off; finding that there are other markets for drabbles besides The Drabblecast. And suddenly, I’ve had three of my drabbles selected for publication within the last week.
Sweeeeeet! So, if you don’t know what a drabble is, you should look them up on the Internet or check out The Drabblecast, among others. You may find that you like them.
~Doug
