NaNoWriMo Follow Up

I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post. In spite of my intentionally controversial(i.e. link bait) title, all the comments were civil, reasoned, and well thought out. I'm proud to have attracted such civil and reasoned readers. Just wanted to respond to some of the points that were raised by those who disagree with my assessment of NaNoWriMo.

First of all, I wanted to reiterate my biggest gripe with NaNoWriMo. It is people who are already writing that shutdown their current writing to do NaNoWriMo. If it wasn't for that, I'd just ignore the whole thing. Some pointed out rightly that the original intent of the competition is to get new writers to write. Based on the format of the competition that makes sense. So really, my problem is that people are using it for something beyond the original intent. The whole thing is turning into a beast that shuts down part of the internet for a month.

Another thing a lot of people said was how much they liked the intensity of writing in 30 days. Also, the interaction with others when you're all in the same situation. To that I would just say that just gives all the more reason to run the competition year round. Every 1st of the month a new batch of competitors could start off.

I also heard about established writers participating and people getting their NaNoWriMo novel published. To those people I would caution against using NaNoWriMo as a crutch. Waiting until November to write is using NaNoWriMo for something for which it wasn't intended. I have to assume that any novel coming out of NaNoWriMo sucks before going through massive amounts of editing. So in the end, is it really worth it? The only thing I can see an established writer using NaNoWriMo for is to try and work past a dry spell of creativity(Again, all the more reason to be year round).

There were some good arguments in favor of the competition, but not enough to sway my opinion, but enough to soften my opinion of it. In the end we'll all have to agree to disagree. Though, I will ask if we can all agree on one thing. Typing "NaNoWriMo" is incredibly awkward. :)