I talk about National Novel Writing Month a lot. You might’ve noticed. But ever since I completed my first NaNoWriMo in 2010, I’ve heard all the anti-NaNo flak and listened to a lot of people give it a bad rap (I’m looking at you, girl Who Dislikes NaNoWriMo). I can understand aversions to NaNoWriMo, but there is a balance. Most of these arguments say the novel-in-a-month challenge diminishes the quality of the novel, messes with the “real” writing process and more or less kills the potential of a good idea.
The first problem with these arguments is that they over-generalize. Of course NaNoWriMo isn’t for everyone, but it’s an excellent writing tool for those who embrace it. And besides, “rebel challenges” eliminate all barriers when it comes to utilizing NaNo for all it’s worth. Which is where editing comes in.
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For example, I started the rough draft of my science fiction novel Blue 15 in March 2013, apart from any novel challenge. However, I never truly wrapped up the story until I barfed up the raw ideas during the July 2015 Camp NaNoWriMo. Before that, I had edited the first half of the book in November 2014, and then rewrote the manuscript entirely in July 2016. This “rebel” part of the rebel challenge means NaNo participants can do pretty much anything they want in the place of a novel — comic, poetry book, short story collection, anything. So instead of writing new material, I chose to edit and revise a work in progress to help move it along. As a college student, having time set aside for that was a blessing. I plan on doing it again in the future as many times as I need to.
Before all that, however, I used to think I never had to edit — back when I was a teenager and was convinced of my own godlike writing abilities. Since then, I’ve been to college and had my professors knock me down a peg or two (or five). In particular, I took a Fiction Writing class with my academic advisor as the professor, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I literally got to write stories and turn them in for a grade. In the process, I participated in my first-ever writer’s workshop. We passed our stories to the left, and everyone in the class read and critiqued them before we got them back.
Talk about humbling.
And it hasn't stopped after just one writing workshop. Last week, I read a chapter from Bret Lott’s book-writing memoir Before We Get Started, and I came across something I needed to hear — something all writers should probably hear repeatedly over their lives.
“I know nothing.”
Even though I didn’t realize it until a good five weeks into the semester, my Fiction Writing class centered on this concept. Lott doesn’t mean all writers are ignorant; we just genuinely never truly master writing. How could we? Writers spend lifetimes at their craft and still find things to improve. Personally, learning to take criticism was interesting. After I got over the initial pride-bruising rite of passage, I began to think about it seriously. I’d never bothered editing a whole novel, although I’d heard that one should. So I started compiling my notes, thinking the process through and then at long last, beginning the work.
It was incredible. Awful, grueling, mind-boggling, frustrating, redundant, one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of work, but at the same time it was diverse, fresh, innovative, necessary, inspiring, finally-getting-the-big-picture kind of work that I grew to love.
It’s taken a while. Last Christmas, I broke Blue 15 down into a rough outline, then transcribed each general scene onto a post-it note. When school resumed, I laid them all out on my floor in blocks (thank goodness I had no roommate). I rearranged, cut, rewrote and added other post-it notes, and when I finally finished, I transcribed it back into a new outline. That’s what I used to rewrite the thing in July 2016, one of the best NaNoWriMos of my life. And the book still isn’t quite done.
The thing about editing is that it’s painful, but also joyous. Once you finish — if, one can argue, finishing is possible — the fruits of labor are always worth the effort. It’s like exercise, but instead of losing weight you’re bringing entire worlds to life. And yet, the reason we can argue about whether or not we can finish is because, when you get down to it, “I know nothing.”
