So I’ve been think­ing — pos­si­bly spurred on by some posts I’ve seen here and there — and I’m won­der­ing if (NaNo)WriMo is actu­ally doing me any good. I’m in no way dis­miss­ing the ‘move­ment’, but I am ques­tion­ing the direc­tion in which it does, and is push­ing me. Writ­ing 50K words in one-month? Well I was never into that whole idea any­way (using a numer­i­cal sys­tem to drive prose wasn’t going to get me to run any­way fast), but it’s not just that, it’s also the pseudo-responsibility it’s putting on me and the fact that it’s not real, or that it’s sole func­tion is to force me to write X amount of words in Y amount of time.

I’m find­ing, and I’m aware that it’s only been five days, that I’m not enjoy­ing writ­ing. I can­not feel a pas­sion for the things I am typ­ing — which is a prob­lem, no? I wanted to test myself with NaNo, to see if myself and my fam­ily can endure this way of life: com­bin­ing the writer with the social-man.

The prob­lem is it’s not even com­ing to that. There are no results in, no polls taken, I — we — sim­ply don’t know if this is even what it would be like because I don’t have the want to sit down and write. It’s ‘forced’ for want of a bet­ter word and forc­ing the words to come out just isn’t on the cards for me. I’m a busy man (in a hard to find time for myself kind of way) and as such, I’m tired a lot — phys­i­cally and men­tally. I work on my feet part-time, I’m more or less a full-time father, I do a good deal around the house and I’m try­ing to write some­thing I can believe in. The notion of knuckling-down to write when I have no real desire to is a hard one when I’d be sac­ri­fic­ing my actual down­time to do it. If I am to be tired, but also write then I must have the pas­sion to write. I must be giv­ing up my want to sim­ply switch-off for some­thing worth-while, not for some­thing I don’t enjoy doing (not only does that work against the idea of writ­ing, but will also pro­duce a sure to be slush­pile). Is this a prod­uct of NaNo, or just where I am in my writing-life right now?

I’ll play Devil’s advo­cate to this though, and high­light the mer­its I believe NaNo has. I do believe it’s fun for whomever wants to take part, no mat­ter their pre­req­ui­site skills and/or desire to get pub­lished. If you want to do it because you’re inter­ested to know if you like writ­ing, just to have a blast at cram­ming in a month’s worth of words to form some kind of crazy man­u­script or to sim­ply fill a void, or clear a men­tal block you have with writ­ing then go ahead. It’s not really about the end prod­uct is it? But the path, and expe­ri­ences you find along the way. Some­thing good might come of it: an idea for an actual (planned) novel, prac­tice, you meet some friends (though really, do that many peo­ple become friends in thirty-days?) or you argue the def­i­n­i­tion and point in NaNo and it makes you take a closer look at your own writ­ing and aspirations.

I think on the whole, NaNo is a les­son, though the specifics of the class are individual-specific. Where one per­son might be scared off from writ­ing (pity), another might re-find their pas­sion for the writ­ten word. It’s all about each to their own, case by case, learn what you will. I don’t think it’s good or bad, but sim­ply is. There are pros and cons, but that can be said for any­thing. In the end you won’t know unless you do it — fail­ure and suc­cess bring there own lessons.

For me per­son­ally? Well I’m going to keep on at it. Where I feel the want to write, I will and where I realise that my own (human) needs take prece­dent, I won’t. It shouldn’t be a mil­i­tary exer­cise in men­tal­ity and focus, it should be some­thing approach­able and at the moment, it is still approach­able for me. I’m see­ing (and I have been here a few times) that my writ­ing has got­ten rough. I used to be good and no, it wasn’t just me say­ing that. But even I can see I need prac­tice, I need to re-hone what tal­ent I have left. This may have been more fun had I been writ­ing this whole time, but quite a while back I fell off the wagon. I didn’t wait for NaNo to begin, but looked at it like a marathon: though I did like jog­ging alone, an event was on the cal­en­dar where I would have to try harder and maybe find out how to get myself back in the game.

We all have dif­fer­ent ways of find­ing our way, and for some it’s harder than others.

Note* On a good note, one of my older short sto­ries is being pub­lished — more on that later.