Why NaNoWriMo is Beneficial

I've mentioned my love of NaNoWriMo on this blog a few times, and with November creeping up on us, I feel it's appropriate to sing its praises once again.

If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, and you haven't done NaNo, I highly recommend it. Highly. Mightily.

Here's the rundown: You have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. Or 50,000 words of a novel, since most novels run quite a bit more than that. Bottom line: 50K in 30 days. That means averaging 1,667 words a day, assuming you write every single day in November. Anyone who crosses that line wins. It's not a competition with others - though many of us competitive folk like to engage in cutthroat word wars - it's a competition with yourself.

The only prizes are bragging rights and some cool little badges to put on your blog (there is one on the right side of my blog from last year) or whatever. That, and 50,000 words you might not have otherwise written and can now revise into something publication-worthy.

Oh, and a monstrous helping of self-discipline.

Therein lies the reason for my unwavering support of NaNo: In order to win, you have to put your butt in a chair, your fingers on a keyboard, and write. It doesn't matter what you're writing, only that you are writing. At the end of November, you've got your 50,000 words, but more importantly, you've got the self-discipline to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Now you know you can do it. Even if it exhausted you, you can do it. So, now that you've knocked out 50,000 in 30 days, what excuse do you have not to write, say, 65,000 in 60 days? Or 75,000 in 90 days? Or 100,000 words in 6 months? That should be a piece of cake. All you have to do now is sit down and do it, because you know you can.

Of course everyone is going to write at a different pace. Some books take longer to write, some writers go at a faster or slower pace, but the purpose of NaNo is to get you in the habit of writing every day. Of pushing your limits. Writing is a muscle, so says Scarlett, and NaNo is some serious hardcore training for that muscle. Like any workout program, get through the first few weeks and the rest gets easier. It's never easy, it's always intense, but it's not as difficult once you've made it past the beginning.

I absolutely credit NaNo with giving me the necessary kick in the butt to buckle down and write. I'm extremely competitive by nature, so the whole concept appealed to me. I figured I'd do it, collect a few bragging rights, and be done with it, but that wasn't what happened. Instead, I decided to ride the momentum into another book. Then another. When it still didn't wane, I figured I should keep it going as long as I could.

10 months, 10 first drafts, 4 major revisions, 2 contracted novels, and several hundred thousand words later, it's still going. Even after taking nearly a month off in August, it's still there.

NaNoWriMo put my butt in the chair, and the self-discipline I gained was far and away more than I expected. Given my notorious lack of self-discipline, I can't tell you how helpful this has been for me. If NaNo can get me to stop procrastinating and making excuses, then it can do the same for anyone.

NaNo is basically an opportunity to separate the talkers from the writers. You've talked about writing that book, talked about how much you want to write it, now put your money where your mouth is and do it. And that is why I cannot recommend NaNo enough. You have nothing to lose, and a hell of a lot to gain. Will your NaNo novel be publishable? Maybe. Maybe not. But anything written can be revised, and you can't revise what isn't written.

So, my loyal blog minion, are you a talker or a writer?