NaNoWriMo: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly by Emma Petfield

I have only participated in National Novel Writing Month once (which was 2 years ago now) and I did thoroughly enjoy taking the time to do so. There was a feeling of elation as I hit 50,000 words that cannot be compared to any other achievement.

For those unaware, NaNoWriMo is a challenge set to people, who may or may not consider themselves to be writers, to write a novel in 30 day. For the purpose of the challenge, a novel is distinguished as 50,000 words, which works out at around 1667 words a day.

NaNoWriMo is a good way to break the barriers of writer’s block, not having time or not being focused enough and I learnt from it that if I really focus on something that I could actually write a novel if I wanted to. And I do want to.

On the other hand, I do find that NaNoWriMo can give people a sense of false hope, insofar as they believe having written a novel in 30 days they are publishable. This is highly unlikely. I’ll be the first to admit that even though NaNoWriMo was a milestone for me and I’m proud to have completed it, I wouldn’t dare show anyone the novel that I’d written.

I chose to go over my novel a few months ago to see if it was something that I could pick back up, because I loved the idea and did think that I could produce some good work with it, if I started from scratch and really worked through the plot. What I didn’t realise was that I had walked into a 17 year old mind with a somewhat dubious grip of complex grammar and even the odd spelling mistake (even though I’m an English student, I’m far from excellent and I’ll never be a grammarian). It was quite an experience.

What I can say is that, looking back on my NaNoWriMo novel has helped me to realise how far I have progressed as a writer in that period of time and that I now have the ability to go over my work and edit it to a degree that makes me happy. I also wonder if 21 year old me will go back to the novel again and wonder what on earth the present me was writing, but I’ll have to wait to find out.

I do advise that you try out NaNoWriMo, they run a ‘camp’ all year round if you can’t participate in November. I think it is a useful for understanding yourself as a writer. It helps you find out what makes you tick and motivates you to keep going, because having the motivation to write can be just as important as the words themselves.

by Emma Petfield

The Brit Writers Blog