Sometimes Wednesdays fall on good days for me. This Wednesday happens to be the day after Nanowrimo. I know a lot of regulars in this blog didn’t participate this year because of the wedding of our fantastic blog hostesses, but I like to write entries pretending that people other than CVS might be reading this. At the beginning of the month I wrote both here and in my own blog in defense of Nanowrimo. Now, I write in condemnation of it, but a very specific and directed condemnation. Nanowrimo can get people to start writing, but too many of them then stop again on December 1 and take the next 11 months off.
Said more succinctly by Tee Morris in Twitter: “To all #NaNoWriMo participants, today’s the Finish Line. Doesn’t matter if you won. You’re writing. Now make it a regiment after November.”
Writers write. That’s been the theme of a lot of the posts I’ve made on various incarnations of multiple blogs. And writing at times can be damn tough. Trust me, I know. No writing project has become more of a grind for me than the novel I’m currently working on, for reasons I’m still struggling to understand. But I push on as much as I can, and that means writing in months that don’t start with an N. So while I wholeheartedly endorse anyone and everyone who is interested in writing to try Nanowrimo, I just as strongly encourage anyone who has done Nanowrimo and wants to move from writing to being a writer to keep it going. Finish the manuscript. Edit it. Don’t just stop now and expect to start up against next November and be taken seriously as an actual writer.
Writers write. Is it always easy? Oh hell no. Will you always be satisfied with your results? Probably not. Will you ultimately be satisfied in the end? Only if you strive towards that goal.
DL Thurston is the author of Rust, available in print, for the Kindle (US/UK), from iBooks, and in all other eBook reader standards. You can read his various exploits at his blog, follow him on Twitter, or watch him try to make sense of the War of 1812. He has some misgivings about Amazon’s attempt to crowdsource movie creation, and came across some more Capsule Tech this week.
About the author
DL Thurston is a writer of novels, screenplays, and the occasional short story. He has short stories due out soon in the Steam Works anthology from Hydra Publications and in The Memory Eater. When he's not writing, he also brews beer and even drinks it sometimes. Check out his exploits either on his blog or on Twitter.
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December 5th, 2010 on 11:56 am
ARGH! I feel like you are talking to me today…and you are right, totally right. It is easy to do it in November with a deadline hanging over your head, it is a little harder to do it in December, but by February I talk a lot about wanting to write and it doesn’t seem to get done in more than dribs and drabs. Writers do write…and if I want to be a writer that’s what I need to do. Thanks for the sound shake and pointed finger.
-Renee
December 6th, 2010 on 4:47 pm
Hey, I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t stand to take my own advice from this post.