A Gentle Agent's Guide to the End of NaNoWriMo

Josh Getzler

So it's the end of November, and if my Twitter and Facebook feeds are any indication, the urge to complete a novel in a month remains strong in many writers, who are by this point tired, irritated, pretty much hating the sight of their computers and are thinking of ways to torture their books' protagonists, whom they despise.

That's because NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, or as most of us like to call it, November) is unnatural. It imposes an artificial deadline on a process that typically takes a more plodding determination--to start and finish a reasonably-sized novel in the space of 30 days, one of which is Thanksgiving.

But that doesn't mean it's worthless: not at all. I know many writers who have used NaNoWriMo to write up the framework, or sketchy draft, of a book that they eventually get published. And the discipline of placing butt in chair for a month straight does wonders for writers who wonder "Can I actually DO this?" That's great. And there's a wonderful, mostly online community of sufferers...er, authors (I tease because I love) who share their thoughts and headaches and struggles to make Word Count without inserting gratuitus sex scenes so they can write "Oh god Oh god Oh god" for three lines.

But here's what I'm here to say, and it's for both self-interest and for the value of giving this as advice: Please, if you have written a novel during NaNoWriMo, don't then "try it out" on agents or editors or even your best friends before you take a very hard look at it and spend serious amounts of time editing. To be fair: the very vast majority of participants know this well (and anyone who's done it more than once definitely knows). And there is a sense that December is NaNoEdMo. And January could be NaNoReWriMo. But neither, really, ought to be NaNoSubMo.

Instead, marvel at what you have accomplished--you've written all (or in many cases, really, most) of a book from scratch in a month. I've never done that. Neither have most people in the world. It's a great achievement. Seriously. And I would LOVE to get a beautifull, well-written, spit-polished submission of a manuscript that was conceived in November. It makes a great story for the pitch, and I feel like we all root for it. But the writing is only the first step. 

Now, with three days to go, get back to it! You should be hitting the climax (not the 3-line Oh God kind!) and taking it across the line. Good luck! Then go to sleep, wake up, turn on the laptop, and get to editing!

Comments

[Elizabeth West]

"...and struggles to make Word Count without inserting gratuitus sex scenes so they can write "Oh god Oh god Oh god" for three lines."

Bwaa ha ha!

I think March is the actual NaNoEdMo, but for me, it will start long before that. Yes, totally sick of this. Rewriting and editing are actually my favorite parts. First drafts stink!

[Toni]

I agree - first drafts are the pits! I enjoy the rewriting much more than the actual writing.

To quote Murphy Brown - "The real writing is in the re-writing" So true!