Why I'm going back to NaNoWriMo

A first in writer’s block

Were I the sort of person to believe that my experience is universal, I’d have one key piece of advice for aspiring young writers: do not do a literature degree.

The benefits of studying English seem obvious: as well as absorbing good style from the great writers, you gain the ability to pepper your work with the kind of allusions that make you look clever and the reader feel clever. You also gain the related but less respected power of being able to lift ideas and plots quickly and efficiently.

But you might also lose the ability to judge your own work effectively. The subset of writing which achieves publication is already a misleading one to compare yourself against, but at least it’s vaguely practical. Implicitly pitting yourself against the established canon of classic English literature is - in my non-transferable experience - a wonderful way to end up painfully producing a very small amount of pompous rubbish.

Smugness, admiration and fun

There are a number of different gains to be had from writing fiction. If we’re honest, most of us can ignore the financial ones, at least for the time being. Beyond those, there’s the pride you take in what you create, and the prestige you gain from creating something people admire. Maximising these gains means becoming a better writer, but it also means finding the right niche. You might be a very effective producer of romantic fantasy novels beloved by teenagers who think depression is a fashion accessory, and only a middling producer of political satire, but if you value political satire and the admiration of its fans more than you admire sexy werewolves, it may not be sensible to follow your talents. (One of the unfortunate effects of a literature degree can be to skew your values towards the Nobel-winning side of things, wherever your talents lie - and whether whether or not that is what you enjoy.)

Fun is another important consideration. If your values are as above but you really enjoy writing those fantasy novels, you’re going to have a difficult choice on your hands. (Unfortunately, when an English degree shifts your values it seems to leave your pleasures well alone.) You’re also going to struggle to be productive: you’re motivated to work on the satire but will have a lousy time when you do; the fantasy will be fun, but you won’t feel much better about life once you stop for the evening. You might as well watch telly instead of writing. (My advice in this situation would be to write a romantic fantasy novel thick with political satire, if only that didn’t sound so awful.)

I had hoped to provide a definitive formula with which to calculate how you can best maximise your total return from the time you spend writing under these diffifcult circumstances; sadly my PR company have not got back to me.

Fun is better than a new notebook

For me - and, I suspect, many others - there is one key consideration: writing anything will make me happier than writing nothing at all. This means that as long as it’s not obvious what I want to be writing it’s reasonable to pursue a strategy that maximizes output. And in my experience, that’s the one that makes writing fun. In that situation, starting might be less exciting but carrying on is easy, and carrying on is what gets you the vast majority of your sentences. In the worst case, the fun approach is no worse than watching television.

NaNoWriMo

Luckily, there’s a well-established way to force yourself back into fun, productive writing. National Novel Writing Month starts today, and I’m fairly confident it’s impossible to participate successfully unless you give yourself permission to have fun. The two years I took part were easily the most fun I’ve had writing. Some would say that’s because it encourages you not to take your writing too seriously; I don’t think that’s quite right. 50,000 words in a month is tough, but it’s not so tough that it’s worth it for bragging rights alone; if you don’t take the writing seriously, the only sensible thing is to give up. Rather, I think it encourages you not to take yourself too seriously. (Some people thrive on taking themselves seriously, and there’s nothing wrong with that; I am not among them.)

So, this November I’m going to do what comes naturally: being silly and letting myself have fun.

I still can’t stand the name, though.