Should we believe in NaNoWriMo?

AkddJust finished reading this article on one of my frequented news sites by one of their book reviewers on why one shouldn't participate in National Novel Writing Month (which, this year, I didn't). Somehow I missed this when it was first published in November, but it's still reasonably relevant, so what the hey.

I speak from personal experience. I have never "won" NaNoWriMo (i.e. successfully submitted 50,000 words before December 1), but each time I have participated, the raw outpouring of words, sentences, paragraphs it generated from me have set the right (write? Ha.) gears a-churnin', and when I closed the MS Word document full of the rambling I was hammering out for the contest, I set upon some other work that had bloomed within me, and produced some damn fine lines, some of which I'm still proud of and want to continue working with. These were dislodged, possibly generated, by the flood of NaNoWriMo forced through my otherwise (at least at the time) barren mind. The same is not true for all writers; some are just frustrated, bored, or exhausted by the processes of NaNoWriMo. In which case, it's not your thing, fine. But I do encourage most of my friend who write to try it.

In the article, Laura Miller paints the competition as solely for writers, which, okay, is mostly true. But there is always a pretty generous handful of people who participate who aren't. Maybe they've always dreamed of (or at least vaguely thought about) writing something, or maybe they just needed a quantifiable goal. Either way, a lot of them reach the end, which is more than I can say for myself. Then, ta-da, they end up with a goal achieved, and some sort of product at the end. And sometimes we all need to have that. So what's the harm in encouraging it? Yes, perhaps some participants think a little too highly of their final submission, and/or underestimate the necessity of the long, hard road of revision. That still doesn't detract from the benefit they and others might get from participating. Live and let live?

Instead of participating in NaNoWriMo, she argues, people should be reading-- that the proportion of readers to writers is disgraceful. Which, of course, is true. Dammit, people do need to read more.I need to read more, and I chew through more books in a year than most people I know. But she sees NaNoWriMo, and similar practices of do-it-yourself noveling as harmful to the culture of reading. She writes of seeing a NaNoWriMo event in a bookstore:

It was yet another depressing sign that the cultural spaces once dedicated to the selfless art of reading are being taken over by the narcissistic commerce of writing.

I say "commerce" because far more money can be made out of people who want to write novels than out of people who want to read them. And an astonishing number of individuals who want to do the former will confess to never doing the latter. "People would come up to me at parties," author Ann Bauer recently told me, "and say, 'I've been thinking of writing a book. Tell me what you think of this ...' And I'd (eventually) divert the conversation by asking what they read ... Now, the 'What do you read?' question is inevitably answered, 'Oh, I don't have time to read. I'm just concentrating on my writing.'"

Alright. I'll admit that that response is just as offensive to me. But I'm willing to bet a whole lot that these people were unbearably pretentious and arrogant anyway, and that this condition didn't suddenly come about just when they affected to be "writers". Reading and writing are not mutually exclusive occupations; just the opposite. Writers should be the most voracious readers of all. I'm sure Miller is aware of this widely held belief. And yes, arrogant fledgling writers who overrate their own ability are incredibly annoying, but that doesn't mean that this yearly event which allows people to have fun and eke out a creation is useless/harmful.

If National Novel Writing Month isn't your bag, don't participate in it. Don't read any of the resulting works. When people gush about the experience, politely nod and smile and change the subject, just as you do when they spout on about their new baby, or World of Warcraft. Miller suggests that people participate in reading challenges instead of writing challenges. (Incidentally, she posted an article on reading challenges today, I suggest checking out the links.) I intend to take at least one of those challenges this year. I will also be participating in NaNoWriMo.

Cake is doubly delicious when you have it and eat it too. I imagine books are as well. (See, if you take the cake metaphor, and writing is... oh, forget it.)