Writing Wrongs

October 27, 2005

But Ma, all my friends are doing it!

And if all your friends decided to write 50,000 words in a single month, would you?

Call me contrary, but every November I get a little cranky. It�s not the holidays. It�s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, or if you�re really cool and in the know, been there/done that, then it�s NaNo.

I�ve never been in a spot with my writing where I could participate. That might be a major source of my crankiness. It�s like having a broken leg over summer vacation. And I�m not the type to strut around in a tweed blazer with suede elbow patches while tossing a silk scarf over my shoulder and bemoaning how writing should only be for those serious about the craft.

It still makes me cranky. NaNo, that is, not the whole tweed blazer/silk scarf thing, although that�s a close second. It�s not that I�m anti-NaNo. Their FAQ page has some wonderful reasons for why they do this each November. And I�m all for writing. Even if it is simply 250 words a day. Or 50,000 in a month.

I think it�s the bandwagon effect. It�s like the rush of every wanna-be-published writer and her dog trying their hand (or paw) at the young adult genre simply because it�s �hot� right now. I don�t sense a love of the form here and it really turned me off to the whole thing. (A friend pointed out to me that I�m the only person she knows who would walk away from a hot-selling genre. Just call me contrary.)

Worse, I have many friends doing NaNo this year. I even talked to some of them about it. They�re going to think I�m resentful/bitter/insane when they read this.

Or, at the very least, cranky.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 1:19 p.m.

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