The Point of NaNo

During pre-NaNo, I heard a lot of people criticizing the ever-popular writing program. Their point was always something along the lines that NaNoWriMo focused too much on producing high word count which resulted in bad writing.

Awesome and inspiring quote.

But that’s the thing. The idea of NaNo isn’t how pretty the prose of your novel is on December 1st when you sit down to reread it for the first time. That’s not the point.

Well then. What is the point? 

No one, not even the greats, is going to turn out a best seller in thirty days. No one can produce a great first draft that requires no revisions.

I read an article on StoryFix.com that discusses this very thing about NaNo. Larry Brooks says that the point of NaNo is all too often missed. He says that the masses often overlook what is really important about the challenge. And it isn’t about reaching ‘The End.’

It’s about beginning.

NaNoWriMo is about the beginning of your writing journey. It’s incentive to begin that novel you’ve only been thinking about writing until now. It’s about getting that jumbled mess of an idea out of your head and putting it on paper where you can actually work with it.

And no one said it was going to be easy.

This is the half-way point of this crazy writing challenge. Right now, I’m at a point where the idea pool is running a little shallow. I would really rather back away from the whole thing and forget about writing for a while. I’m feeling the burn, I’m feeling the pain of writing a book in a month.

Think about this; a diamond forms under tons and tons of relentless pressure.

There’s a reason the great writers of old locked themselves away while they were working on their masterpieces. They were holding a lump of coal and intestinally adding pressure, being relentless with their ideas until that lump of coal, that idea, turned into a diamond.

So as I was struggling with what to write for this week’s post, I was wondering, is it really worth it? Is NaNo really for my benefit?

Since I was a kid, I’ve always had a passion for writing. But, what is passion when you don’t do anything about it? Can you truly say that you love something if your heart isn’t in it? What will you offer to others as proof of your passion?

So, for me at least, the point of this NaNoWriMo is about proving my passion. It’s about beginning a journey and letting everyone see for themselves that this is my passion.