I Do Not Get NaNoWriMo

[inverarity]

I'm feeling curmudgeonly. (Probably why I've been having a harder time lately biting my tongue. I need a little more zen so I can go back to posting nothing that's not related to writing.)

Okay, so I'm going to be curmudgeonly about writing.

It's that time of the year again... every freaking LJ community and message board on the Internet is about to be filled with hysterical ranting about sleep deprivation and word counts and runaway plot bunnies and idiotic squeeing over NaNoWriMo.

Someone explain to me what the appeal is of churning out 50K words of crap in a month?

Sorry if I am harshing your squee, for those of you who are participating in NaNoWriMo, but (1) 50K words isn't all that much, and (2) "quantity not quality" is a phrase that should never be used with regard to writing. I've seen people proudly talking about how they're inflating their word counts with tricks reminiscent of a high school freshman trying to pad two paragraphs about the American Revolution into a 10-page essay the night before it's due.

Umm, not that I ever did that or anything...

Comments

[mudbloodproud.livejournal.com]

I did this last year, and while I can say probably the last 10,000 words from my sleep deprived brain ended up being deleted when I turned to revision, the ultimate goal is to have a novel at least half way written if not finished by the end of the month.

Personally, I am now in revisions of what I wrote last year with only about 15,000 to 25,000 more words to go before I have a sellable novel out of my NaNo story.

It is fun, plain and simple. For those who take it seriously and write according to the guidelines and honestly, it can be a very rewarding month. I know I felt very accomplished on December 1st knowing I completed my goal.

Now, to get that goal published. Soon...