::
exclusive report
writing a rapid draft
Find
a quiet corner, a pen, and kick your writing arm into high gear
during an annual writing event November 1-30
Chris Baty's
National Novel Writing Month ::
nanowrimo
::
By Tim Ljunggren
Not unlike scenes from Fear Factor scripts, if you
give details of this upcoming challenge to writers, many might
slide their chairs rapidly away from mid-century roll-top desks
or kitchen tables where gunpoint-gray laptops stare, electrified,
at the rules of this game.
A
few writers will scoff. Many will say it just can't be done.
Some will be intrigued.
Fifty
thousand words.
Approximately
175 pages.
Thirty
days.
That's
the concept behind Chris Baty's National Novel Writing Month
(NaNoWriMo)—aspiring novelists are asked to write
fifty thousand words (approximately 175 pages) between November
1 and November 30 of each year. Prizes? There are none. Cash
awards? Zilch.
Is
this man insane?
If
Baty is insane, he's not alone: as the sixth annual NaNoWriMo
looms closer, an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 writers will sign
on with hope, angst, panache, ambivalence, and maybe-just maybe-a
hint of insanity.
Baty,
a freelance writer and author of the book, NO PLOT? NO PROBLEM!
A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days,
recently spoke with WordSmitten about NaNoWriMo and what it
takes to write a novel in thirty days.
AVOIDING
CLOISTERED MISERY
WORDSMIITTEN: What prompted you to start National
Novel Writing Month? What prompts you to keep it going?
CHRIS BATY:
I think a lot of it was just kind of worshipping novels, and
wondering if I could write one myself. I'm an only child, and
kids who grow up without siblings often have a pretty intense
relationship with books. I remember reading myself into carsickness
every year on our annual family drives from Kansas City to Mississippi
or Colorado. Without brothers and sisters to help pass the time,
you just naturally end up using books to fill that void. They're
like little portable friends.
So that
explains the "NoWri" parts of NaNoWriMo. The "Na"
and the "Mo" parts stem from the fact that I always
have a much easier time getting something done when other people
are doing it alongside me. It's sort of a classroom mentality:
when everyone is working towards the same goal, it's easier
to stay focused. Having so many friends on board seemed like
it would make the writing process a lot less scary, and it makes
the time management aspects of it more appealing. Writing a
book by yourself tends to involve a lot of social sacrifice.
This is especially true if you have a full-time job, and are
trying to write a book on evenings or weekends: just when you're
ready to relax and have fun with friends and loved ones, you
have to exile yourself to some lonely room where you sit by
yourself and type.
By roping
all my friends into writing a novel in a month, I kind of avoided
that. The writing process became less of an isolated, cloistered
misery and more of a book-themed block party. It was pretty
neat.
As for the motivation for keeping it going--running NaNoWriMo
is the best job in the world. I spend about five months out
of my year working on NaNoWriMo, and it's a wonderful, exhausting,
and totally inspiring experience. The rest of the year, I'm
a freelance writer, which is satisfying as well, but a little
lonely. Organizing NaNoWriMo is the exact opposite, and I get
a contact high every year from all the people realizing their
hulking creative potential. I feel unbelievably lucky to be
a part of that.
WORDSMITTEN:
In the six years you've been organizing NaNoWriMo, what's surprised
you the most? What have you found to be the most frustrating?
CHRIS BATY:
I think I've been consistently amazed at just how powerful the
human imagination is, and how capable everyone is at churning
out a reasonably coherent story in a limited amount of time.
When you only give yourself thirty days to write a book, your
brain stops fussing so much over each sentence and just goes.
Somehow this rush actually improves, rather than detracts from,
your writing. It's weird, but when you evaluate each day's output
by word count rather than quality, you don't fall into that
self-hating despair that tends to sabotage adults' attempts
at creative play-which means you are exponentially more likely
to see the project through to the end.
The most frustrating thing about running NaNoWriMo is slowly
getting phased out. In previous years, I tended to try and do
too much of the work myself. Which made October and November
kind of a nightmare as I tried to handle all the tech support,
general questions, graphic design, fundraising and bookkeeping,
pep-talk writing, and store-running myself. I was also writing
my own novel on top of this. It got to the point where I wasn't
sleeping very much, and having nightmares every night about
server hacks and misplaced t-shirt orders.
I'm
now able to hire administrative, tech support, bookkeeping,
and graphic design help--which means things are much less stressful
for me.
FUNDING LIBRARIES
WORDSMITTEN: Can you tell us a bit about NaNoWriMo's relationship
with Room to Read? Why such an emphasis on social interaction
and significance?
CHRIS BATY: For the past couple of years, I've been going back
and forth on the idea of making NaNoWriMo a non-profit corporation.
From my conversations with directors of Bay Area non-profits,
though, I've realized that establishing and running a non-profit
takes a dedicated staff, a lot of year-round energy, and much
more money than the small amount we raise every year through
donations and t-shirt sales.
And as much
as I love NaNoWriMo, I don't want to spend all year working
on it. But despite the fact that we won't be an official 510(c)(3)
anytime soon, I was still keen on channeling all the collective
energy of NaNoWriMo towards some form of social good. So last
year I spent some time researching literacy organizations that
we might adopt-and that's how I found Room to Read.
Room to
Read (www.roomtoread.org) is a nonprofit corporation started
by a former Microsoft executive who decided he wanted to bring
books and reading to kids in poverty-stricken places like Cambodia,
Nepal, and Laos. They've not only built libraries-over 1,000
have been established to date-and train library staff, but they
also hire local writers and illustrators to produce cool children's
books in the local languages. These books are published in-country,
using local printers. So Room to Read is not only turning kids
onto books and reading, but they're also sending positive economic
ripple effects through the entire country. It's kind of an amazing
project, and we'll be giving 20% of our net proceeds from site
contributions and t-shirt sales to their Cambodian library program
this year. Through Room to Read, you can establish a library
in an existing school for $2,000; we're hoping to get at least
two, maybe three NaNoWriMo-sponsored libraries built in areas
that could otherwise not afford them.
WORDSMITTEN:
This year, you expect anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 people
to attempt to write a novel within 30 days-what is it about
writing that hooks people? Why do people agree to write 50,000
words in no more than 30 days?
CHRIS BATY:
I think some of NaNoWriMo's appeal is in its "quick-fix"
approach to creativity. Everyone is so busy with work, family,
and friends that they don't really have time to work on things
that are enriching but not essential. When you barely have time
to buy groceries, the idea of signing up for painting classes
or French lessons is beyond the pale.
NaNoWriMo,
because it only lasts a month, serves as a manageable and satisfying
dunk in the old creative juices. However busy someone's schedule
may be, they can usually find two hours a day, five days a week,
to dedicate to a book. And what a huge pay-off for a relatively
small investment! Most of us spend ten hours a week watching
TV. To trade a few "Cheers" re-runs and some prime-time
couch-potato'ing for a novel seems too good to be true. But
that's really all it takes.
I
think the other allure of NaNoWriMo is the fact that it gives
practical, respectable adults a one-month vacation in novel-land.
For one month, we get to step out of our hum-drum lives and
just live our fantasies of what it means to be an artist. For
me, it means making unbelievable messes in my apartment and
drinking so much coffee that my eyeballs twitch. I stay up too
late and eat a lot of junk food and throw office supplies around
just for the hell of it. But for that month, I also see things
with a more enlightened eye. I listen more closely to other
people's conversations, and pay more attention to body language
and gestures. It's as if you gain a sixth sense while writing
a novel, a probing little eyelet that goes out and explores
the world to see if any of it can be transformed into novel-fodder.
That sixth sense, coupled with the ability to hurl staplers
at the wall when you're frustrated, is a real joy.
Finally, I think people sign up for NaNoWriMo for the social
opportunities. NaNoWriMo is one of the few non-dating Web sites
out there that is based around real-world, face-to-face interactions.
Wherever you live in the world, there's a good chance that there's
a NaNoWriMo chapter somewhere near you, organizing write-ins,
get-togethers, and parties in November. 
DON'T HIT ME, I'M A WRITER
WORDSMITTEN: What advice would you give to someone who really
wants to write a novel during National Novel Writing Month,
but is a bit ambivalent?
CHRIS BATY:
I would whack them over the head and say, "What are you
waiting for? Give it a shot! You have nothing to lose!"
And then I would apologize for hitting them, and then recommence
my yelling-because you really don't have anything to lose. If
you end up writing 50,000 words and hating them all (which you
won't) then you've only invested a month in the thing. And you
can bury it in your backyard and never think about it again.
But
if you end up writing a 50,000-word novel and being kind of
surprised by how surprisingly okay it is, then you've leapt
way, way ahead in your writing schedule, and gained a host of
valuable writing insights that you couldn't get any other way,
and you now have this manuscript that you can then revise to
perfection. If you so choose. Either way, you can forever after
brag about your feat to attractive strangers in bars and coffee
shops. What could be better?
WORDSMITTEN:
You've written a book entitled No Plot? No Problem:
A low-stress, high velocity guide to writing a novel in
30 days. The title seems pretty self-explanatory, but can
someone really write a novel in 30 days with relatively low
stress and relatively high velocity? And did it take you longer
than 30 days to write your book?
CHRIS BATY:
It did! It took me about four months to write the book-and it
took me five years of struggle and over-caffeinated epiphanies
to collect all the questionable bits of strategy and advice
that I dispense in it.
Yes, absolutely,
I think that the first draft of a novel can be done quickly
and without a lot of stress. The key is in leveraging three
things:
1) The liberating
power of speed.
2) The terrifying accountability of a deadline.
3) The reassuring notion of inherently flawed first drafts.
The first
one, speed, means you're staying focused on forward momentum,
not allowing yourself to dwell on your writing faults and fears.
It's all about output and improvisation, and the measure of
success is measured in brute word count, rather than literary
aesthetics. It's counterintuitive, but writing for quantity
rather than quality actually nets you both.
The second
means you're forcing yourself to write daily or almost daily,
which gives you intensity and focus that does great things for
a book. When writing a novel in a month, your imagination is
forced to wade into unknown, frightening plot developments that
it would normally try to postpone indefinitely.
The third
point means that you just accept the fact that your first draft
is going to need a lot of fixing, and that you will do that
fixing later, after your entire story has emerged and you have
a better sense of what tweaks are needed. In No Plot? No Problem!
I encourage writers to not read any more than an orienting paragraph
from the previous day's work when sitting down to write. When
you read any more than that, you inevitably-and prematurely-start
deleting things, which sucks you into this overwhelming process
of trying to make everything perfect right then.
When
you embrace the idea that you are going to write some really
miserable prose at various points during the month, you can
just laugh when it happens. And keep going. You'll always be
able to fix it later, before anyone sees what a horrible writer
you really are.
FROM ONE MONTH TO MAINLINE SUCCESS
WORDSMITTEN: Have there been any publishing successes that arose
from NaNoWriMo?
CHRIS
BATY: There have! In the past few years, the second novel written
under the aegis of NaNoWriMo will be coming out: Time Off for
Good Behavior, written by Lani Diane Rich and published by Warner
Books. Lani's story is pretty great-she hadn't tried novel writing
before, but was intrigued when she stumbled on the NaNoWriMo
Web site back in 2002. She signed up, wrote a book, and was
surprised by how unsucky it was. She edited it and showed it
to an agent, who loved it-as did Warner Books, who ended up
giving her a two book deal. Her book is coming out in October
of this year.
WORDSMITTEN:
What made you become a writer?
CHRIS
BATY: I just kind of stumbled into it. I have two degrees in
anthropology, and hadn't really thought about being a writer
until I started doing music reviews for the school paper at
University of Chicago, where I was finishing up my master's
program. I'm a huge music nerd, and something just sort of clicked
with the reviews I was writing. From there, I moved back to
the Bay Area to work as an editor at a dot-com. I loved being
around words and writing, but after a year and a half at the
Web site I decided I wanted to give freelancing a try. That
was five years ago. I've been doing a mix of articles on music,
travel, and popular culture ever since. It's a weird life, but
a pretty neat one. This spring, I got to go live in Singapore
for a month to write an article on Vince McMahon and professional
wrestling. What other career lets you do that?
Also, on
the fiction-writing side, thanks to NaNoWriMo, I have five mediocre
first drafts hanging around. I've spent the summer working on
a major overhaul of one of them, and hope to have it ready to
go out to editors by this November.
WORDSMITTEN:
Where do you see NaNoWriMo five years from now? Ten years from
now?
CHRIS
BATY: These things all have a life span, and at some point NaNoWriMo
will become outdated and square. For now, though, it all just
feels tremendously exciting. There are so many good novels out
there that didn't exist before NaNoWriMo-along with all the
friendships that have started at local NaNoWriMo chapters and
parties. Hopefully, No Plot? No Problem! will help
induce some artistic jubilation into lives far beyond the reach
of the NaNoWriMo Web site
I
guess the bottom line is that I think we all are capable of
so much more than we give ourselves credit for. And it's been
great watching that idea spread around the world these past
five years.
The
National Novel Writing Month Web site can be found at www.nanowrimo.org.
For those writers who face their gunpoint gray computers and
say, "Hah! Thirty days is too long, give me three weeks,
and give me a stinking novel." We want to hear from you.
We want to see the results.
TIM
LJUNGGREN
is WordSmitten's contributing writer and former editor/founder
of the notorious Webzine, Insolent Rudder, which continues
to reign over the literary cyber waves. He lives in Montana
with his family and teaches creativity workshops when not driving
more than 50 miles for sundries.
