NaNoWriMo has really brought writing challenges to the forefront. There's just something about setting yourself a huge word count goal and just going for it, quality be damned. This year I'm helping out with the Romance Writers of Australia 50K in 30 Days June Challenge - over 100 people have signed up!
Every year, I read a lot of trash talk suggesting that NaNo is the cause of multiple publishing woes, mainly high submission rates of low quality manuscripts. Personally, I think the home PC and a lack of recognised apprenticeship structures goes a long way towards that, and don't get me started on editing, but whatever.
What these people don't realise is that there is a certain freedom that comes from locking your inner editor in a box (side note - my inner editor sounds like my ex-boyfriend, an awesome writer who still proof reads for me on occasion - does anyone else get that? I mean, not get my ex-boyfriend, but get a recognisable voice?) for a month and just focussing on finishing the story. You don't have time to think about how crap it is, you just have to keep pushing ahead.
It's not for everyone, sure. But it's done wonders for me. I've written almost 200,000 words since last September when before that writing was something I was gonna do one day when I got good. A lot of that was through challenges like Nano and the RWA one.
I've set myself a goal of 100,000 for June. I'm already behind (as expected!) but there's a public holiday coming up and my husband has promised me a good chunk of uninterrupted time. Here's to writing a whole bunch in June!
Word Count - 698
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