Saying No to Nano

Have you been anywhere remotely related to books or writing lately? A book store, a library, websites across the web, mailing lists. You’ve probably noticed a trend lately. Write a novel fast. Plan a novel in 30 days. Be ready.

Nanowrimo is coming.

Sometimes it is weird to see what a huge thing Nano has become. When I first did it, back in 2003, there were only a few thousand people participating. You could easily keep up with the entire forums, if you wanted to. Your friends had never heard of it, and thought writing 50,000 words in a month was crazy when you brought it up.

Now it’s everywhere, everyone knows what it is, and everyone tries to profit off of it as much as possible.

And when you’ve been doing it as long as I have–ten years straight from 2003 to 2012, and then again in 2014–there can be a lot of pressure to keep doing it. And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of things I love about Nano. I love seeing writing friends that turn up out of the woodwork. I love the creative energy of everyone working toward a common goal. I like the experimentation that goes along with the concept, and the way the speed forces you to work through problems that might otherwise stump you for months, often with brilliant solutions.

But the fact of the matter is that sometimes it won’t work, and that’s okay.

I skipped Nano in 2013 because Shards came out on December 1 and I needed to focus on book marketing. And I’m going to skip this year because I’ve got a book draft that’s due on December 1 for a novel coming out next year, and the fast-pace, quantity-based Nano process just isn’t what I need right now.

I will probably feed off Nano a bit–this draft must get done, after all–but this year, it’s just not going to work out. 

Oh well. There’s always next year, or the year after that, or the year after that…

Participating in Nano? Doing your own thing? Inquiring minds want to know.