NaNoWriMo Day 1: Plunging In With New Friends

Both Snake and I got a start on the Nanowrimo today.  My word count is 2188.  Snake, who decided to jump in at the last minute with absolutely no planning, already blew me away with 2350.  As happened in 2003, I'm amazed at how quickly two thousand words piles up.  I awoke fairly anxious and intimidated.  I thought, well, let's see if we can do five hundred and then take a break.  I ran a word-count at a thousand, figured there was no reason to stop now, lit a pipe and puffed my way through to the end.  Easy.

No doubt it's all dreadful.  But who cares?  November is about counting the words.  (And incidentally, I looked at my efforts from last time and they're really not as bad as all that.  So who knows, maybe this one won't suck either.)

We've had some fun meeting with fellow "wrimos" this year.  Sunday evening, about ten of us met up at Dado Tea in Harvard Square for a pre-plunge meet up.  And tonight I just got back from meeting a smaller, but no-less-dedicated group at the Cape Cod Borders bookstore in Hyannis.  Since November has dawned and we're all off and running, the laptops came out in the second meeting.  I can't say any writing actually got done,  but we've met a great range of folks, talked a little shop, and had a good time. 

I love the down to Earth nature of the Nanowrimo project.  It doesn't promise to show you how to write a bestselling novel.  It doesn't deny the fact that making a living as a novelist is damned near impossible.  It doesn't judge which genre you're working in or offer any tips on mechanics or style.  It's just about getting 50k words out and, hopefully, having a good time while doing it. 

Wouldn't you think this experience would weed out a lot of folks?  You know, people  spend their whole lives thinking, "I should write a book," but when they're actually forced to sit down and do it, won't most of them realize what hard work it is and give up?  And then if they do finish it, they've got to go back and look at this horrible thing they've made, knock it into shape, and submit it to a cold, unfeeling publication machine, which will no doubt chew it up and spit it back at them. 

Doesn't it seem the #1 reason for writing a novel would be to learn how awful it is, so you never have to torture yourself with those, "I should write a book," thoughts again?

Only most of the people I've met are doing this for the second or third time.  Granted, most of us never finished our stoies (whether we hit 50k words or not).  And only one fellow made any attempt at editing his work.  I haven't heard any successful publication stories yet, either.  But these people are doing it again and again.  Could it be that people enjoy art for art's sake?  Producing, rather than consuming?  Turning off the feed for a while and giving something back? 

It warms the cockles of my cockles.

And hey, the Boston group made the Boston Globe!  Front and back pages of the living/arts section, even.