Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Why is writing a lot of crap a good thing?

Disorganized Author forwarded the question asked by her friend.

I haven't won NaNoWriMo any time I have participated, and I think my dislike of what I am writing right now got the better of me, and I won't win this year either. Well... I have been badly organized and prepared, I don't have a whole story, just a scene, and I don't even like what I am writing... But, I still think NaNoWriMo is a good thing, and writing a lot of crap among the good stuff is also good.

This is because I have noticed that I need to get into the profession of writing.
I need to teach myself to write every day, what ever happens. If I manage to teach myself to write - what ever it is I write - I will be writing, and that is the only way any writer can produce a manuscript.

To Disorganized Author's friend and her likes, I would like to say that it is quite possible to write 4 hours and then edit it for 4 hours, and produce 8000 words, of which one edits out like 6000 words, and still produce a 60K manuscript to the end of November. It is possible to produce 2000 reasonably good words a day for a month, even if one allows the inner editor to work during that time.
It is also possible to print out some 20 pages of the manuscript at a time and edit the "mess" in reasonable pieces, so that the whole 50K will not drown you.
I imagine it would be easier to edit a whole story. I imagine it is easier to cut off the unnecessary parts, because I know where the story is going, because I have already written it once. It is easier to see if the flow is there, if I have the whole book to read. I have never managed to write a novel, so I have never edited a novel either, so I don't know. I just imagine it to be so.

I have also noticed that my inner "editor" or saboteur, who she really is, is quiet, if my goal is to produce 2000 words a day, but not, if my goal is to produce a book someone might want to read. If I am writing a book, I will never succeed, because the writer's block hits me with all the "uh, this is no good, no-one will ever want to read this, this is pure crap, blah, bah and humbug!"

I am seeing the NaNoWriMo as practice in writing, not in writing well. :-)

As I said, I doubt I will be winning NaNoWriMo this year either. I haven't written a word in six days - or I have, but it's about 400 words. Not the 12.000 I planned to write... It is 11th of the 11th, Memorial Day, and my word count should be about 18.000-19.000 words. It is a little less than 9000. *sigh*

I haven't written short stories, articles, blog entries, or anything else either this weekend. To my defense I can say that I was at my sister's, because my brother and his family were visiting Stockholm this weekend, they came on Friday and left on Monday, and today is the cleaning day, but in reality, I have no excuses for not writing. None, what so ever. I even dragged my laptop with me this weekend, planning on taking a couple of hours off and writing.

I could also say, that my medicine is "playing tricks" with me, and I am constantly sleepy. I sleep 12 hours a night, but wake up tired and drowsy. 7 hours later I'm ready to go to bed. Even when this is true, I don't feel I can use that as an excuse not to write, because I write really quickly (if I write) and this is my life. I should be able to write in spite of the obstacles life puts in front of me, if I really am a writer.

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