Why I'm Not Doing NaNoWriMo This Year

Sometimes I get jealous when I surf other people's blogs.  "Wow," I think.  "They have their very own place on the internet where they can post what they like!" 

Of course, the moment that I actually form the feeling into so many words is usually the same moment that I remember I have my own blog. 

I am a silly goose, no?

At the moment, my laptop is back in semi-working condition.  I don't know how long it will last -- I've learned not to take anything for granted -- but I am determined to not be disappointed, no matter what happens with it.  Disappointment, when you really look at it, can be such a waste of energy.  Treat everything like a gift, and with time everything feels like a delightful surprise.  It's a beautiful way to live.

I am thinking that I might not do NaNoWriMo after all.  This morning, I found myself thinking of November, and wishing that I didn't have to curtail all the writing-related things I want to do, simply because I think I should do NaNoWriMo.  It is true that at this stage in my life, I desperately need some time devoted solely to creativity.  But the more I reflect on the matter, the more I think that NaNoWriMo is not the creative activity that I need.  

The reason that the passion and creativity have left my writing is this: since I discovered I could write, I have tried my best to accomplish something with my writing because I wanted to prove that I could accomplish something, not because I loved writing itself.  Sure, I still loved it, but I took that passion for granted as a tool, a means to an end.  The continual pressure I put on myself to perform has driven so much of the joy from my writing.  I find myself longing for the days when I could start random stories in order to play with an idea, without feeling like I absolutely had to finish them.  I want to be able to "doodle" with my writing again.   

So, here is what I propose to do with my writing life: instead of devoting the month of November to writing 50,000 words of a novel, I will devote that time to creativity.  I will play with ideas, construct plots I may never use, scribble character sketches, start stories that I will never finish, draw characters, and care not if I make a mess.  I will do the things that the performance pressure has kept me from doing.  And hopefully, I will heal. 

To be compelled by a being of ink and paper...

So, thanks to Lyla at Read By Flashlight, I discovered The Great Blogging Experiment with enough time to participate in it! 

The prescribed topic is Writing Compelling Characters, which, I think, is a beautiful topic. 

Much has been said on various blogs and in all sorts of books concerning what makes a character compelling.  There are some things that certainly help make a compelling character, and while I agree with many aspects, there is a part of me that rebels at formula. 

I think that in many cases, a better question to ask is why we dislike certain characters, often without a solid reason for doing so. 

My belief: we hate these characters because we suspect that underneath all the description, the character isn't a real person. 

I'm not talking about the author.  The author is certainly real, but is the character that the author has written real to the author?  Does the writer believe that this character could very well exist, and is a valuable and interesting person?  And most importantly, does the author not take that fact for granted? 

We love characters either because we believe they could exist, or because we wish that they did. 

Yes, characters can be unbelievable, but they have the unbelievability that real people have.  Have you looked at real people recently?  Have you noticed the people in your own life who, when it boils down to it, are unbelievable?  We admire great and compelling characters for much the same reason we admire great and compelling people: because they have the audacity to exist as themselves. 

But there's another step between real characters and compelling characters.  There are some characters that are perfectly believable, but we still hate them because we feel these characters latching onto us with greedy fingers and pulling at us, sucking up our attention and our enthusiasm like a sponge, with no recompense.  Yes, we hate them because they give us nothing.  We read to gain.  We are willing to sacrifice our time and attention with the understanding that we will get something in return.   A compelling character is one that accepts the reader's sacrifice, and gives back even more than what was expected.  More heart, more interest, more honesty, more of that audaciously thrilling reality -- so that even when the book is done, we remember the character as if they had been in the same room with us. 

This isn't an exhaustive guide, of course.  But I believe this is the starting point. 

"I saw their souls rise up on the wings of a phoenix, and I cried, 'Let me follow!'..."

Before you read this blog post, you need to open up Onna’s musings on ‘writing what you know’ and Pip’s two-hundred-dollar response in a separate window. They covered the idea in such a thought-provoking and beautiful manner, showing where the idea was correct and where it was wildly misinterpreted.

I read what they said, and I remembered what I had forgotten. I had forgotten the passion of writing! I had forgotten what it felt like to pull a word from the depths of one’s very soul and throw it on the paper, leaving it to be admired or spat on. I had forgotten what it meant to be a mediator between What You Were Trying To Say and the blank page, finding the one language to great to comprehend, and the other woefully inadequate for a true translation. Of all the things for a writer to forget, to forget passion… that is a slow death.

It all makes sense now! All the hours spent wondering why I could make no progress on Evanescent Moonlight – how could I, when the very reason for progressing had become “word count, finish chapter, must finish …” That’s no way to write a novel about emotion. The joys and sorrows have to be your own. You can pretend, but no one will remember what you said afterward.

And here I am, on the brink of one of the most important scenes in the novel, and once again, God has given me the revelation I needed at the exact right moment.

I am off to write with passion.