As per my last, cobwebbed post, Nanowrimo is a month-long, world-wide premise in which to write a 50 000 word novel. That is definitely a deceptive explanation (rule of thumb: assume everything simple is deceptive. Also everything anyone has ever seen or done and maybe the universe). You (would-be author of Water for Elephants, which, yes, was a Nano novel) sign up online, where you are part of a community of coffee-addicted variations of the writer archetype. You stake out and mine your claim via a dashboard, which shows stats like your word count per day. (Yes, thanks, I get it, computer gnome. I am inadequate.)
You can ONLY start on the 1st (no head starts, fools) and finish by the 30th (late validations have to be done personally). You have to write from scratch - no existing novels and such, because we all have a lame one nursing itself somewhere. Every day you update your word count (no, not an imagined one 'cause then you are just a fool wasting time you could spend writing). Your dashboard updates the stats, so you know for example that it will take you 20 more days to finish (and you're on the 21st), and you have 10 920 words to go and an average daily word count of 3.
The overriding and oversimplified objective is to adapt to the discipline of being a writer. A real one. Not just a wannabe one with a lame novel. Contrary to legend, the trick to being a writer is like any other profession: you work hard. Especially since society in general has no respect for copyright and actively views it as an occasion to 'stick it to The Man'.
Let me duck out of Nano to explain something: Copyright, like general labour law, is a system to reward artists for their intellectual property. Without it, we rely on government subsidy and censorship is um bad. Do I need to explain?
Writers (and musicians and artists) sell their copyright, along with their book, to publishers, because (no matter who tells you otherwise) a self-published author does not usually have the resources to edit, typeset, print (if they need to), distribute, market and monitor sales of their book. In return, the author receives a cut of the sales value (net, mind, not gross). The books that do sell, pay my rent. Or not. So thanks for believing the fools who tell you piracy is a moral necessity.
You can see the link, right? I have to work harder to make less or I stop writing and find something less rewarding but more lucrative - no, that means something else is more rewarding. My argument falters like that of intellectual property pirates.
And... we're back!
To finish your novel on time, you must write 1 600 words a day. I am a trained and experienced writer, and I can usually push out 500 words a half hour or 1 200 a hour. Should I wait while you do the maths? That is about 1,5 hours a day. Hours stolen from the hours you are not at work. Stop cooking? Stop cleaning? Stop sleeping? Drink flagons of potent coffee (basically grounds)? Lookee, you really are a writer! (Here's the secret: the stereotype has always been true because writing requires discipline. More so now that everyone and their pets think they are writers. Lookee, I just pounded on these keys and then Kindle bought it and 3 people read it!)
Focus, focus.
For the first three years, I retired early: before 10 000 words (twice), before 30 000 words and before I started. Even then, I was fairly disciplined about writing for at least half an hour a day. Sylvia Plath wrote 1 500 words a day. (Ya' know before she bought into the patriarchal system and her life went avocado-shaped.) That fact has always inspired me. As you will know if you read her letters and journals, she was prodigious - far more prodigious than one novel would suggest.
This time, what with being part-time unemployed, I had an hour and a half to spare, and I was searching for a purpose. I needed a win. Also a cool pseudonym for some things I need to say. (In the end, I used my real one. Some things gotta be said and someone gotta back them up (and not back down. Fools). Adopt ghetto accent again.)
30 000 and then 42 000 were the trickiest. Around 30 000, I realised that my joke of about 20 000 words was true: my novel had literally lost its plot, it was descending into a teen romance (don't worry, I squashed this pandering to the patriarchy by redirecting her energy) and (now this is unlike me) all description had been replaced with dialogue and facial expressions. Dialogue? What newly creviced crevice of my soul is this? Luckily, I still didn't have a plot. I defy Aristotle, too.
At 42 000, I was close but so far. I started to just spew rubbish, pretending to realign the plot and develop characters and even link it to a previous lame novel licking itself right under my chair. I jumped from section to section because I couldn't remember what had happened and I didn't have time to read back. This one squashed itself, thank goodness. I had no clue how to do it myself.
Sitting in a coffee shop, on my sixth cup of the day and with the sugar of a chocolate danish animating my fingers, I pounded out 5 000 words with only a brief paralysis before the last hour and (I confess) during most of it.
As I looked to the corner of the screen, I yelped and did a dance in my chair that was mostly just moving my hands up and down, ghetto style. (I looked cool, fools. Haters.) I copied the creature and pasted it on my dashboard. I pressed 'Validate' with shaking hands (my hands shake normally. I think they are alive and trying to escape my body, digit by digit). The browser burbled and (really quickly especially for SA's bandwidth) congratulated me. I had written 50 250 words (of dialogue). I scrolled down... to claim my... badge. And... discounts on merchandise. Err...
None of the people exhaustedly trying to suppress the energy of their tiny people turned to acknowledge me, not even my impressive in-the-chair ghetto dancing.
It ended the way it began (and had never ended before). Quietly. To the aroma of coffee and chocolate croissants. I have 50 000 words, although not a novel, contrary to Nano's hopes. Please, you have read (at least this) my blogposts. You should know that I employ most of the words in the dictionary, instead of just the word dictionary. I barely even have a middle - just dialogue and facial expressions (read the sample on my profile and you will understand). Halfway through (calculate that however you like) I realised that I had a solution to the inertia of my first novel. I had the plot and it had been sitting on my nose like a freckle all along (it's difficult to pick out).
Oh, are you waiting for something? Oh, right, you want to know what the plot is. Dear fools, then you wouldn't buy the novel (or pirate it and therefore rob me of all acknowledgement of this incredible achievement) and I will continue to be partly unemployed and eventually my service provider will rob me of data because it doesn't believe in not getting money for its service and I won't have any. Thieves!
To convince you to ghetto dance with me, I dare you to Nano it up next year. Feel the muscle burn in your brain and fingers, the paralysis, the aches from sitting in a chair on your legs for too long (bad habit). Feel the Nano. And then, let's talk international property law and why I should be your very employed agent.
