Novel writing as a metaphor for life By Rose Green
Recently, as I have battled away with my dissertation (currently 13,000+ words out of the required 20.000, though it will be more by the time you read this) I have been struck by the similarities of my experiences during NaNoWriMo.
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual challenge to anyone and everyone to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November. To date, I have taken part six times and completed the challenge four times. I have taken a break during my studies but I am already looking forward to taking up the challenge again this November, following my graduation.
When you 'nano', there is no time for editing, or deep thinking, or even eating and sleeping! The challenge focusses the mind on quantity over quality; all that matters is meeting that day's quota of words before you sink, gratefully, into your bed. To say that it gives participants a buzz is an understatement of epic proportions. I have written lines of pure brilliance and paragraphs of total dross. There have been nights when the words have flown straight from my brain, through my fingers and onto the screen and others when it has been a struggle to form a single sentence.
And, in its current form, my dissertation very much resembles a NaNoWriMo script somewhere around the third week in November. I know that most of the words are the right ones, though not necessarily in the right place and I know some of them need to be discarded forever. At the moment, however, my task is simply to produce a sufficient quantity to be able to edit, to be able to trace threads of thought through the whole, to end up with something I can be proud of.
It has also struck me that NaNoWriMo is rather like life. There is no time to edit and refine the things we do and say on a day-to-day basis. We just have to hold on tight and enjoy the ride. But there is also a danger of being so engrossed in our daily quota (of work, of television, of laundry, etc, etc) that we miss the ride completely. When I take part in NaNoWriMo, I aim for 2,000 words a day, slightly more than the bare minimum. This means that I can take a few days off when I'm too busy or too tired - or when I just need to do something else for the sake of my sanity.
We only get one life. We all need to make sure we're making that life something we can be proud of.
PS - there is a saying that everyone has at least one novel inside them. If you're interested in testing the truth of that saying, I'm thinking of starting a St Bride's NaNoWriMo group this November. To learn more, visit the website http://www.nanowrimo.org/ or give me a shout.