This may have escaped your attention, but November was National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo.
It’s an online initiative run out of the US, to encourage would-be writers (aka slackers who talk a good story) to finally, finally, finally shut up about it and put words on paper.
The goal is straightforward : 50,000 words in 30 days. The route equally simple : 1,667 words a day.
After years of procrastinating at a world-class level, I bit the bullet on 1 November, got up an hour earlier than usual, and wrote my first slab of text. And that’s all it was, a slab. As Truman Capote said of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ scroll: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”
This morning, 29 days later without missing a day, I reached the finishing line. 50,482 words of typing. Bad typing.
Oh, there are a couple of moderately interesting characters; there’s a sort of plot; there’s the possibility of a resolution; there are some good jokes; there’s some musings on life and the world; and none of it is in any way related to what I had in mind when I set out.
And I don’t care. Like the runner who comes 8,234th in the London Marathon, all that matters is completing the race. I showed up, every day.
There have been some days when it has flowed like golden syrup; there have been a lot more when it’s been an utter, unforgiving slog. While I haven’t re-read any of it, I know that there are one or two really good paragraphs (they’ll be the first to go – ‘Murder your darlings’ advised Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch) and a lot of repetition. When the blue pencil comes out, I’ll be lucky if 20% stays.
And I don’t care. Every morning I have been down the ideas mine and cut out some raw material, blocks of words that now need shaping and honing and polishing. Somewhere in there are the notions of a book. And if not, then a LOT of blog postings (you’ll be delighted to hear).
So why go public with this; why bask in my own wonderfulness?
Because, as any regular reader knows, the standard form of ‘the novel’ is over 100,000 words. Even if everything created in the past month were the outpourings of a Pulitzer Prize winner, I’d only halfway there. In truth, I’m less than a tenth of the actual distance.
I don’t want to lose momentum. I shall be up tomorrow morning, doing my 1,667 words, and when I reach 100,000, it’ll be time for a break and a review: Is there anything worth keeping, or do I start afresh?
Douglas Adams was so skilled at missing deadlines that his agent once locked him in a room for three days to get a contracted book finished. Despite best of intentions, some of us need that sort of external threat to keep us on the straight and narrow.
You – dear blog reader – are now the other half of an emotional contract with me. I shall report back on 31 December.
I hope it’s not with my tail between my legs.
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Thomas Mann: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
I wouldn’t dream of putting myself in the same company as Mann, but his comment chimes with me because of the curse of perfectionism. Every word examined, edited, re-written, re-edited – usually in real time, which usually means the first paragraph of a post takes 30 minutes to hone.
(Indeed, I have already re-written that paragraph twice. Old habits, eh?)
Some say that it’s how it should be. When Jack Kerouac published his stream-of-consciousness novel ‘On The Road’ – written in an intensive 3-week period, on a 120ft scroll of paper – Truman Capote waspishly commented “That’s not writing; that’s typing.”
For the first four months of this year, I tried ‘writing’ my blogs: and it has always taken twice as much time as I plan. Set aside an hour at 21h30 and I’m still at my desk at 23h30, searching for a bon mot as an ending.
And that perfectionism becomes a barrier to beginning. Hence, my posting have dried up since the middle of April.
But I return to the blogosphere, inspired. Thanks to Bre Pettis and Brio Stark, and their ‘Cult of Done’ Manifesto.
No more perfectionism for me; I am shutting away the internal editor who’s forever criticising every sentence, setting my on-screen timer for 20 minutes, and posting whatever comes in that time.
At least until I get back on track.
All of which is an apology. Sorry I’ve missed my deadlines, and apologies if the next few weeks (while I catch up) isn’t the same standard as before.
But hey: it might be better.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Ernest Hemingway once took a bet that he couldn’t write a story in six words.
He came up with ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ and said it was his best work. Not surprisingly: it has an astonishing ratio of words to emotional impact.
I stumbled upon the Six Word Stories website, which has some great examples. The difficulty with the form is to create a story rather than just a slogan or an aphorism.
Here are my first attempts:
Mr Unlucky called Samaritans. Left voicemail.
Guaranteed investment. Life savings. Square one.
Personal best. Urine test. Enforced rest.
WHR R U GODOT? No signal
Be delighted to see your contributions. But a word of advice from Mark Twain before you start:
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter. So I wrote a long one instead.” In addition to the word/emotion ratio, I found a similar equation with time…
Popularity: 5% [?]
A letter to a bank from a concerned customer:
Dear Sirs,
In view of what seems to be happening internationally with banks at the moment, I was wondering if you would advise me?
One of my cheques has been returned marked ‘insufficient funds.’ Could you please tell me whether that refers to me or to you?
Yours faithfully
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