Writing for the Count

Check out this entry I found on a blog for writers the other day:

I'm at 10,548 right now... I should get my 3,000 words for the day easily and might push all the way up to 12,000. My boss at work asked me today, "What's the point of writing so fast if it's not going to be any good? If you're just going for word count, what difference does it make?"

The words are those of a science fiction novelist Jeff Kirvin, who is one of over 75,000 individuals participating in NaNoWriMo, a web-chic sobriquet for the “National Novel Writing Month.” It's an event, held annually, that asks would-be-novel-writers for a pledge to type 50,000 words (at minimum) for a manuscript, from scratch, within the month of November.

Should the endeavor seem less than daunting, consider that a participant would need to generate an average of 1,667 words (four single spaced pages) of original composition on each of thirty consecutive days through the span of the contest. Also bear in mind participants are, by and large*, amateurs with day jobs who have to pad their scripts in their free time. And finally, understand that there is no financial reward upon the completion of this Augean task (instead the author’s name finds will find its place on a list), and you will realize why less than 12% of those who register for the event actually submit the minimum word count by December 1st.

Masochistic undertaking that it is, enrolment figures for NaNoWriMo have swelled significantly over the years since it began in 1999 as a formal pledge between Bay Area friends. With the aide of a website and the munificence of individual donors, NaNoWriMo has become a registered non-profit organization that spurs thousands each year to make their literary splash.

Chain a monkey to a laptop, and glue at least one of his thumbs to the space bar; I'll guarentee you his name could grace the list of winners in December. That is - provided he didn't select all of the text by depressing the command and "A" keys simultaneously, and resume typing - effectually deleting his text. My point is that if he'll win your race, why run it in the first place? Or as Kirvin's boss asks "If you're just going for word count, what difference does it make?"

The answer: a successful novelist has to be a good writer, and to be a good writer - this is intuitive - one needs to practice writing! Amateurs need the pressure to write, perhaps more than accomplished writers do. What's worse, there is no one to apply it to them. A publisher is not calling up three times a day to check on the progress of a promised title. Fair chance is that novel will never materialize. A novice to the writing myself, I'll admit that without some big ugly deadline breathing down my neck, like a stranger checking out my iPod on the MUNI, I will find something 'better' to do with my time than to stare at my computer phrasing and rephrasing for hours on end. The editting is so excruciating! The pleasure I get from rewording a sentence is about the same as I would fetching honey from a beehive. So, NaNoWriMo helps. The pledge silences the editor within, puts a toy gun to the writers temple, and yells "who cares how it sounds, just write!"

I'd worry about the reader. I find this quote, from Pascal, germane: "I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter." So the idea in NaNoWriMo is to hammer out a draft. Subsequently, however, the author had better apply a red pen.

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* The expression “by and large” originated, interestingly enough, as a nautical parlance for the impossible feat of sailing “by the wind” (into the wind) and “large” (perpendicular to the wind). Thus “by and large” derives its meaning: to consider all perspectives simultaneously.