NaNoWriMo: Just Say NO!

Especially If You’re A Struggling Writer

As we approach November, this is the time of year aspiring writers get swept up by the promise and energy of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). According to the NaNoWriMo website, “National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand new novel.”

An amazing aspiration, right? Especially if we’ve had the dream of writing a book. Might be like having a goal of running a marathon. Or losing 50 pounds. Indeed, we aspire to accomplish huge goals. But what if you’ve never even ran a few miles? Or unwilling to get rid of sugar or alcohol? I’m not here to diminish the possibility of setting and achieving difficult goals. Examples are to illustrate seduction for something we truly fantasize wanting, cast against a severely imposed unrealistic “discipline” we’ve likely not had.

Then what happens? We end up feeling worse about ourselves when we fall not-so-surprisingly short. Writers have enough internal struggle, resistance, and procrastination issues to wrestle with. We already posses an ample trove of justifications, disparaging self-talk, and outlandish ways of describing blocks. These endless loops of desire, excitement, motivation, stalls, justifications, self-loathing, and non-creation, are exhausting. Not to mention inspirationally-depleting.

Before I share a less-popular perspective, I’ll say there are benefits for whatever writing approach works for you. If it so happens that intense deadlines, high expectations, and having a community of others with similar goals are helpful, excellent! We need what we need to light a fire under our keyboards. I’m for whatever it takes to achieve your writing dreams. I’ve had clients and students who have participated in NaNoWriMo, and a few who have successfully made it to the end.

Yet, as an intuitive book coach, creative writing teacher, and retreat hostess, more often this is not the case. I’ve worked with hundreds of people, and I’ve come to understand the emotional labyrinth that accompanies people’s desire to write, and what sustainably enables them to accomplish it.

Completing a book is an extraordinary aspiration. Many harbor the dream. It takes time, space, creativity, intention, discipline, and unbelievable resilience. It may also be as personal and deep as self-expression gets. Those words on a page spill from us. They may be windows of a soul, molecules of breath, expressions of being. Not to say that every book we write is going to be our life‘s manifesto or book award winner. Sometimes books, including novels, are purely functional. Sometimes they’re instructional. Sometimes they support business goals. But no matter the writing end game, there are elements of creation’s process that run deep.

My definition of and purpose for writing’s taken a long time to evolve. It’s approached slightly differently compared to many writers. At least in the beginning. I view writing as a conversation with one’s Self; an opportunity to connect at a deeper level; a profound engagement that has the most unimaginable path for self-discovery.

This perspective is true whether one writes a novel, a memoir, or even a business book. Structure, deadlines, and high expectations may temporarily tear apart from procrastination. What they don’t do, at least not over a long-haul, is provide richness, depth, or dimension to the creative process. Meaning, anybody can do anything with pressing weight of looming deadlines, structure, and expectations.

But how brilliant will your characters be? How honestly nuanced or relatable are they? How well will you understand a character‘s motivation for their actions, or difficult choices they must make, if all your energy’s diverted into completing a designated word count by 8pm on a Tuesday? Creativity seems less likely to thrive from that kind of enforcement. I’m not saying it never happens. I’m only speaking to what years of intuitive book coaching have shown: writing with a taskmaster of expectation sternly looming isn’t conducive to creativity nor true productivity. Then of course comes the issue of quality.

There are certain elements in novel writing, including development of characters, dynamic plots, narrative arcs, engaging dialogue, contextual setting, and visual landscapes that require dreaming. Reflection. Navigation. Negotiation. These take an open sky, not a compressed container, to allow an organic narrative process. We want words to coalesce with imagination in such a way our stories come alive.

Typically, when people come to me, they’re in a state of both creative pain and unrelenting desire. They bring with them a conflicted bag of tactical writing-capacity obstacles, creative constipation, and motivational restraints, all dismissively shoved aside in the name of expectation. It’s seemingly easier to focus everything on an end result of what a book will be, do, or produce, than the messy layers of fear, lack of confidence, and overwhelm that keep us stuck in the first place. Can you see by the very nature of this goal-setup we’re bound for misdirection before we even start?

It takes energy to obsess via expectation: Who will read it? How will it be edited? Where will I sell it? How will it be received? How does it get published? Where do I get an agent? What do I have to say that matters? Novels about star-crossed lovers in the South have been done a million times. What if people hate my book? What if I’m judged? What if my mother reads it and I write about sex? What if I reveal something disparaging about my brother through a character, he calls me out, and no longer speaks to me? I’ve only written 1,200 words, they’re not even good I should’ve had 9,000 done by now. I’m an imposter. I’ve never written a book before. What makes me think I could do this? Forget this. I suck.

Not to mention with these highly-public aspirational challenges comes the inevitable beast of comparison — self-loathsome judgments and critiques accompany being on the sidelines watching fellow aspirationalists share their wildly successful word counts and novel progressions.

In the frenzy of what appears to be a positive, creative, motivational kick-in-the-arse, NaMoWriMo, here are other writing-struggle self-reflective questions to consider:

When it comes down to actually writing, sitting at a desk and facing your words, what do you think you’re afraid of? Is it failure? Judgement? Lack of confidence? Are you overwhelmed by where to begin with organizing or taming all the characters who constantly speak to you?

Are you really someone who needs high-stakes pressure, tight deadlines, and huge challenge in order to start moving? Is this enormous expectation effective for maintaining progression? Why do you want to write? What’s beneath the heart of your desire? A need to explore? Express? Create or connect meaning? A pure love of painting with words? Challenging yourself with use of imagery, compelling dialog, or crafting a tightly-woven tale?

What if there were ways to UNlearn what we’ve been conditioned to believe as truth about writing? Or what books are supposed to feel like, be like, be structured like? Forever erase the sting of rejection, and death of fearless creative freedom, wielded from cutting red pen marks upon papers?

Again, I reiterate: I’m not poo-poo-ing NaNoWriMo as a possible opportunity or time to aim high. Get creating. Immerse in your dream of writing a novel. That’s amazing if you’re at the place, and have courage and willingness to let your words fly. Any writing, whether it’s a poem, a memoir, article, or novel, requires courage. I applaud your bravery.

My only hope is that you be kind to your Self as you embark on this quest, and wide-eyed about its very fundamental set-up and potential pitfalls. Whether you complete 500 or 50,000 words in 30 days, you owe it to your Self to see your words through in an honest process that leaves you feeling accomplished and alive.

Janna Lopez is an intuitive book coach, creative writing teacher with an MFA, and published author of “Me, My Selfie & Eye,” and “WinSome & Fuckdamonium,” a poem collection. She’s completing her third book,“The Art & Invitation of Self-Conversation — Writing That Moves You From Fear to Freedom” based on her work with hundreds of clients. She leads creative writing retreats for individuals and small groups in Santa Fe, New Mexico, through Land of Enchantment Writing. www.landofenchantmentwriting.com