NaNoWriMo: The Biggest Challenge

What is the most challenging part of NaNoWriMo for me?  Letting the writing be bad.

There are two major ways that people write. Some push themselves to write a first draft very quickly, turning off the inner editor and letting the writing be bad until they can polish it later. Others have a hard time ever getting a book written because they can’t move to a new section until what they have is completely perfect.

Most of us, I think, fall somewhere in the middle of this. I know I do.  I produce a fair amount of writing, I don’t have trouble finishing books.  Yet I also polish a little bit as I go. In a day I might write a couple new scenes and also revise and polish some other scenes.

To get the crazy word count of NaNoWriMo, one needs to be able to set aside the cringe of some bad sentences or repetitive word choice or (one of my personal demons) repetitive sentence structure.

As I write this month, I’m constantly having to remind myself that there will be time to revise, edit, and polish later.  Getting the draft done is the important thing.  I know rereading it is going to be painful, but the first draft is not an assessment of my writing skill.  I think that’s the real fear.  That the longer I let the words sit in a bad state, the more evidence it is that I’m not talented.

Which is ridiculous.  But the idea claws at my mind anyway. It’s like I have to polish at least a little bit initially so that I can hide the bad writing as fast as possible.  Even when no one but me will ever read it!

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