NaNoWriMo No Mo

First, apologies for the five-day delay in updating. Blogger was down, I lost a very long (and witty) post I tried to put up mid-week, and then I couldn't log into my account for days. Needless to say, I'm a bit annoyed, but it's working now. I think.

As for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) coming up, I've decided that the restrictions imposed by NaNoWriMo - specifically, the "you can't work on an already existing novel - are too restrictive for my tastes.

The idea behind NaNoWriMo is to write an entire novel in a month. Well, that's fine and good for someone looking to just crank out 50,000 words. It seems that the web site is loaded with folks that are determined to write 50k in a month, regardless of quality or salability. Well, I have news for 'em: writing 50,000 words in a month isn't tough. I've done it several times. Writing 50,000 words of publishable material is the key, and also something I've done several times.

So I'm not looking for a web site gimmick to help me write 50,000 words in a novel. I'm looking to write a novel that I'm proud of, that folks will want to read, and that a publisher will want to buy. I'm happy to use NaNoWriMo to help me get focused on fiction again and something to remind me of what I like to write, but I don't need to be constrained and reigned in from being creative, just because of someone's opinion of how to write a novel.

So the spirit of NaNoWriMo is a good one, but the rules are a bit too contrived and restrictive. I'd rather get back to work on one of my two half-finished novels, and get something in print, rather than worry about living up to someone's relatively unhelpful rules and restrictions and end up with another half-written novel sitting around.

Okay, so I won't get to put the nifty logo on my web site. But I'd rather put another book cover up instead.

That said, I'll spend the next 10 days writing Ghost Ship - wrote 2,700 words today - and then get to work on finishing a novel by November 30. Or at least writing 50,000 words for a reason.