author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

NaNoWriMo writers in search of something to get pissed off about should go here. (Nota bene: While this particular article is safe for the work environment, the rest of Ms. Case's blog is decidedly not.) Those who would like to refrain from bringing the gunpowder kegs of their tempers into close proximity with the sparks of Ms. Case's small-minded ignorance might wish to read this brief excerpt instead.

There is no market for 50,000 word novels. No real publisher will look at a novel that short, but it is too long to be published as a novella. It is pretty much the most useless length of story someone could train themselves to tell. Different word counts lend themselves to different sorts of stories, with different levels of complexity and character involvement. The 50,000 word length is what happens when a real writer gets stuck and has a story too complex for short fiction but not rich enough for an actual novel. A 50,000 word story is a tragedy which will never see the outside of the writer’s desk drawer. And NaNoWriMo is trying to teach people how to turn a passing interest in writing into a failure.

There is nothing wrong with writing only for yourself or for yourself and a few loved ones or for yourself and few drinking buddies. Writing to satisfy only your own passion in fine. Writing to only amuse a small group is fine. Writing a professional word count because the rent does not pay itself is fine. But forcing yourself to write crap for a month? That is just pathetic and the people encouraging this should be embarrassed.

Oh, the wrongness. The utter wrongness of it all! Here, you Molly Cases of the world: Listen up, and understand these things:

A winning NaNoWriMo manuscript is a first draft. This is the main bit Ms. Case appears not to get. She is under the impression that a 50,000 word manuscript can't grow to a more acceptable novel length (or shrink to a lovely novella) on the rewrite. (She may also be unaware that 50K is actually right on the money for a YA novel.) She is under the impression, furthermore, that those 50,000 words are set in stone. That if they are crap on November 30 they will remain crap forever and thus be a waste of the NaNoWriMo competitor's time. Foolish woman, I say! Foolish, foolish woman! And you know what else?

The process of writing a 50K-word plot in 30 days is worthwhile regardless of whether a rewrite ever happens. Ms. Case is under yet another foolish impression: that our efforts are doomed to failure and our time is wasted thereby. I beg to differ. I have heard the anecdote repeated by various published writers (the source, according to Neil Gaiman, is Raymond Chandler) that every writer has a million words of crap in him, and the trick is to practice through those million words as fast as possible. 50,000 words is a fair bit of practice! And it's not just timed writing exercises a la Goldberg or morning pages a la Cameron. It's 50,000 words on a single story. So it's an exercise not only in writing, but in sticking with a single story for a whole month, and in getting that story told on a month's deadline. These are all worthwhile skills. No writer who takes on the NaNoWriMo challenge should be called a failure - and no writer who wins at that challenge should ever be considered to have wasted his or her time.

The people encouraging NaNoWriMo ought to be proud of themselves. By providing a well-publicized dare and an organized online community to share in that dare, Chris Baty and his Minions Of Love And Carpal Tunnel Syndrome have given us that psychological kick in the pants that many people need (and should not be ridiculed for needing) to go from "I'll write a book someday," to, "I've written a book!" The career writer ends up with a serviceable rough draft; the non-career writer ends up with an outlet for whatever thoughts have been prowling restlessly inside. And, hey, check this out, NaNoWriMo as an entity has raised enough money this year not only to pay its own operational costs but also to build three, going on four, libraries in Cambodia.

Ms. Case thinks that Chris Baty et al should be ashamed?

I think Ms. Case should be ashamed. I mean, libraries in Cambodia!

Now, the question of whether a NaNoWriMo winner should be encouraged to call him/herself a "novelist" is of course up for grabs. My friend Alma, for instance, says no. And her opinion, not unexpectedly, has made quite a few NaNoWriMo participants pretty angry. Rereading her article now and comparing it to the follow-up conversation I had with her last year, I think that's mostly because in her vehemence she appears to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I don't think baby-disposal was actually her intention - she clarifies her opinion in a calmer manner at the bottom of this page. If you find yourself getting upset with her article, do read this follow-up before saying anything rash.

Alma's opinion is simply this: if all you have done is pounded out a 50,000 word rough draft, claiming the title "novelist" makes light of the hard work that the career of a novelist implies: you write and revise book after book and you send them off to agents and publishers and you steel yourself for rejections and you hope against faltering hope that this time it's a buy because you've got a mortgage to pay and dinner to put on the table. Until you've been through that wringer, she says, you can brag that you've written a book, and it's a great brag, but you shouldn't call yourself a novelist, and Chris Baty oughtn't to encourage you to call yourself a novelist.

It's a valid opinion, and it differs from Ms. Case's in that it gets my respect. Alma's opinion is informed by somewhat more knowledge of what NaNoWriMo is about than is Ms. Case's - she understands the bit about it being a rough draft, you see, and Ms. Case does not. Alma's later clarification makes clear that her objection is simply to the use of an unearned word; Ms. Case's problem, as her encore elucidates, is with NaNoWriMo participants' use of their time, "using NaNoWriMo as their excuse to be inconsiderate lovers and friends.... making these excuses to people who have real keep-food-on-the-table deadlines to make and acting like theirs were more important." Perhaps Ms. Case only cuts slack for writers whose deadline is imposed by people who sign paychecks? All other writers - you know, us slackers who compose manuscripts on pure hope, not having yet enjoyed the level of success that brings a publisher's multibook contract - we're not following our dreams; we're just being "inconsiderate." (Gods only know how we're supposed to get to that level of success if we're not allowed to take the time to write now.)

And don't think she's backed off at all from her original epithets for NaNoWriMo participants:

...trophy wives trying to prove they have a few brain cells now that they are getting older and less pretty.... unemployed leech boyfriends who need to claim they are doing something besides shooting up and watching cartoons while their girl is at work.

In her follow-up, Ms. Case emphasizes that "I truly wrote what I felt and I still feel the same way."

Unlike Alma, who is simply arguing for one definition of the word "novelist" over another, Ms. Case has utter contempt for the entire NaNoWriMo she-bang and all its participants. She would be made happiest, I think, if one day she clicked on this link and got redirected to one of those "This Domain Could Be Yours!" sites. And she has advice for her NaNoWriMo participant friends:

There is also nothing wrong with loving books in general and novels in specific and not wanting to write one. Reading is a perfectly good pastime. Internet technology makes it really easy to keep a journal about whatever you actually do feel moved to write about. So maybe next November, fewer people will bring up the NaNoWriMo travesty. At least to me.

I would hazard that after reading her little fuck-off-and-die manifesto, no NaNoWriMo participant indeed but the terminally masochistic will care to bring up the subject in her presence. Or, for that matter, give her the time of day.