There's a really nice commentary about the negative side of the experience with NaNoWriMo phrased as a break-up letter over on the blog of a YA author I stalk follow. She's published three novels, and figured she'd give NaNoWriMo a try to write another in a short time span. The result? Crap.

The only really good thing about it is that it creates a daily writing habit. For people who always wanted to write and don't make or take the time, it's cool. The counterpoint is that it tells you quantity is better than quality. For people who won't start at all because their inner editor is crippling them, that's probably true.

I want to remember this for next year, in case I start thinking about NaNoWriMo again. I always like the idea of it, as a kick in the pants to get a lot written and bang out a draft. The first year, it was really good for me, because I was getting over the burnout I suffered from writing my honors thesis. It got me excited, it was reckless fun, and reminded me why I like writing. But the story itself, while it has some vague merit, is mostly crap. I am too ashamed to show it to anyone. And in the last five years, I've never gotten more than a few pages into a revision, despite multiple attempts. There's just too much wrong with it.

My NaNoWriMo 2005 was a lot more like Maggie's experience - I started writing, realized I liked where I was headed, but that I had to slow down in order to make it into the draft I wanted. I think I hit 22,000 words and stopped. My problem really is follow-through, but NaNoWriMo doesn't actually improve follow-through, because it doesn't mean that I get done, just that I hit an arbitrary goal of 50,000 words. I should, theoretically, be able to set a much more reasonable and meaningful goal, and not produce so much crap.

For December I'd like to finish that Crimson Courier story. Maybe in January I can tackle something else, just for me?

The Courier short story has about 900 words now... I admit I haven't worked on it much lately, but I picked at it this morning. I've written about 300 more for the Crimson Courier summary, since I need to make sure I'm on the same page as the rest of the GMs with the mechanics and general history before I put too much more time into this story.

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo another month, I think. This has been a particularly bad month for stability or consistency in anything, much less writing.

It's sort of like fanfiction, only for LARP.

We're working on a fluff text we call the World Book. It's mostly exposition about the different nations, but I envisioned it including lots of extra fillers, like art, photos, short stories, quotes, bits of IC letters, etc. So Wednesday Rick, Justin, and I were talking about the Crimson Couriers, this nifty pony express/secret society of mail carriers who have immunity from national interests because of the service they provide. It led to many what ifs, and I said something like, "this is why I wanted short stories in this book."

So, I'm writing one. Right now I've got about 500 keeper words, and an extra 200 crap that I've been cutting and pasting at the bottom, in case it's useful later. I already know how it ends, it's the beginning that keeps shifting on me. I figure it will be 1500-2000 words when I'm done.

Writing-wise, I realized that I haven't actually finished anything I've started in years. A shortie like this, with a static goal for publication, is probably a good project for me. Here's hoping.

I hit 3,000 but stopped due to distractions. If I was a good little NaNo-er, I'd have worked a lot today, since it is a federal holiday and I had the day off. But it was really, really nice to relax instead.

Words today: 1,725
Words total: 1,725/50,000
Reason for Stopping: Tired, and Ann is here, and I want to hang out with her a bit tonight. Time for pajamas and girl talk?
Mood: Pleased.
Notes: None for now.
Future Plot Points:

I decided to jump on the NaNo train. Maybe I'll do better this time around than I have the past several years... I think I need to try it for my mental health, anyway.

Sitting at 1,119/50,000 right now. A drop in the bucket.

So, I spent most of October writing, and I liked what I was coming out with. I hit a good pattern of write, revise, write, edit, and I was happy. And when November hit, I waffled. I thought, yay, I am all warmed up and ready to launch into a new giant project!

And then I thought, oh no, what is going to happen to what I'm working on, and what is going to happen to my quality level if I drop the revise and edit part out of my work? Will I still be content with what I'm producing? Will I go off on tangents that I should have seen were wrong, if I'd let the work breathe a bit between stints?

Then I got the first encouragement letter from Chris Baty, and I decided that maybe, this year, my goals don't intersect with NaNoWriMo. That whole speech about the geodes that you cut open to see if you have something pretty or if you have crap, and you only know if you go for it? Uh, yeah... being able to say that I persevered to write 50k of crap is not going to make me proud right now. So I decided, no. It wasn't going to make me happy, it wasn't going to produce anything I would be proud of, and it was going to cause me a lot of undue stress.

So far I've kept November rolling like October, and I've been writing either every day or every other day. And yeah, it has (so far) all been stuff for Novitas, which doesn't belong to me and I can't publish anywhere but the internet. But I am happy with it, and I can feel the difference in my lifestyle now that I'm writing regularly again. I wake up with words on the brain. I write during breaks at work. I think about it on my commute. I steal emotions from music and bend them into points of view on the page. It's good, and satisfying, and the thing about the internet is that I get occasional feedback instead of writing in a void.

I have a few things left to wrap up for Novitas, and then I suspect it will shift into the background until we resume regular play in April or May. So I will try to start picking at a new project soon, something just for me, and we'll see how that goes.