So the second week of Nanowrimo is now upon us. According to the numbers I crunched in October, this is the week we’re likely seeing a lot of people throwing in the towel.
Just because I’m not doing Nano this year, doesn’t mean I don’t have my own literary battles to deal with. So perhaps a pact is in order. You finish your novel, and I’ll finish revising mine.
If your word count is lagging, I think it’s time to (re)visit an important question:
Who are you writing for? Yourself, or for an arbitrary challenge?
This is the week where motivation starts to run dry. If you really want to finish your novel, you probably will. Perhaps not by the deadline, but who cares? The point of Nano is to write a book, not cross a “finish line” for the sake of completing a literary marathon. Maybe you won’t get a fancy digital certificate, but Photoshop or GIMP can help you out there*, and nobody would ever know the difference.
Write for you. If you’re 6,000 words behind schedule and catching up seems hopeless, then it doesn’t matter. You’re not trying to hit a word count goal, you’re tying to finish a book.
On a slightly related note, about 40,000 people have signed up for Nanowrimo after 1 November. It appears the total word count has surpassed one billion. From the site, as of 22:31 (Eastern) 8 November, 2013:
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I think it’s interesting that the average word count is already 6,300. I don’t think this suggests by the end of the month we’ll see about 4 times as many words. I think this suggests that there was an initial surge, and we’ll start to see the progress slow down as people run out of steam. Unless, of course, my “pep talk” above inspired hundreds of thousands of people to keep going. Somehow I doubt that, though.
We’ll see what happens next week, I suppose.
* If you’re arrested for counterfeiting Nanowrimo winner certificates, don’t forget that I didn’t actually suggest you do it. My hands are clean.
