Figured something out–this is the hardest time of the year for me to be productive outside of work. So doesn’t it make sense to go easy on myself?
Why yes. Yes, it does.
Towards that end, the Joss-edit is on the back-burner till I have more energy and a friend or two get back to me with a critique. My guys want to work on Hiro, so that’s what we’re going to do.
I’ve been reading over my notes–there are rather a lot, because I used flashbacks and notes to do NaNoPubYe‘s Fall Warm-Up last year–and I’m just astonished at how good this stuff is. That’s not hubris. It’s so good I keep trying to figure out who wrote it, ’cause I can’t believe it was me. That, of course, creates some pressure. It’s so good, and I don’t know how I did that, so how will I make the rest as good?
I have no idea. Therefore, I will give it a shot during NaNo.
That’s right. I’m invoking the Zokutou Clause. The original page seems to have vanished into the misty tubes of the interwebs, so I can’t link it. But here’s how I remember it going:
If you’ve already won NaNo, and you don’t feel the need to create more half-finished manuscripts (because 50K is not a book in any genre I write in, and, hooo, boy, do I not need any more half-finished MSs!), you can invoke the Zokutou Clause and use NaNo to work on an unfinished something. The goal is either 50K or reaching The End.
Of course, the Zokutou Clause isn’t actually part of NaNoWriMo rules. When I searched it, the top working link was a mention of it in the NaNoWriMo forums. I could link that, but if you’re not a registered WriMo it won’t do you any good. So here’s the relevant part, quoted from the FAQ.
Do I have to start my novel from scratch on November 1?
Yes. This sounds like a dumb, arbitrary rule, we know. But bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You’ll care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush. Give yourself the gift of a clean slate, and you’ll tap into realms of imagination and intuition that are out-of-reach when working on pre-existing manuscripts.
The thread goes on to argue about the Clause being cheating, being against the honor system of NaNo, being WRONG. In my humble opinion these people need to remove the wooden stave from their hindmost porthole. These are the writers who scream about Wrimos daring to write 100K words in NaNo because they want the challenge. The ones who call liar on the few, the fingerless, who somehow achieve a million words in that joyous month.
People, this is not–something in which only one method exists (brain surgery? No. Rocket science? No. Sudoku? Not sure–ah-ha! Religion!) NaNoWriMo is not a cult. There is no One True Way. Chris Baty, a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is, did not create NaNoWriMo so we could sit around carping at each other.
Besides. In the above quote, Chris says, “…bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You’ll care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush.” Yes, this astonishingly important rule is all about making NaNo easier. Making a challenge a little more challenging is not cheating.
Copying and pasting 50K from your blog into your MS to validate is cheating.
Doubling your wordcount goal from the Official NaNo Amount is not.
Starting before midnight, or just using words you’ve already written as part of your wordcount to win is cheating.
Undertaking the harder task of finishing a novel rather than beginning one is not.
Got it?
Anyone who doesn’t like it is free to bugger off. Don’t bother commenting–when you snipe, it just makes you look like an envious turd who can’t hack it.
Err…sorry. Pardon my rant. Stickybeaks piss me off, whether they’re invading my NaNo or my gay friend’s bedroom.
So. Now that I’ve addressed that…why would I undertake this difficult phase of this wonderful novel during NaNo, a creative rush that, yes, encourages carelessness in favor of wordcount?
I’m glad you asked. Perhaps now I can get back to what I meant to say.
Two reasons. First, I wrote the first half, that wonderful stuff, under the over-caffeinated, sleep-deprived mantle of NaNoWriMo last year. It stands to reason it will work again.
Second, the rush to keep up will make me write without worrying if it’s good enough. The only first draft that can’t be edited to brilliance is the one that doesn’t exist.
Come ooooooonnnnn, NaNo!
YOU SAID STICKYBEAK! \o/
Er. Pardon me.
This is well said! I rewrote TKH during nanowrimo last year. It still needs another rewrite, but I did it. NaNoWriMo’s a great time to get unfinished stuff finished, IMO, because of the great, productive atmosphere.
Man, I can’t believe people bitch if you /double/ it. Those people would hate me. They’d despise poor Hanxa, who got a lot of slack and snark for hitting a million. (“Why, it MUST be terrible!” Oh, shut up, who cares?)
I can’t stand the people who turn NaNoWriMo into a competition then become bitter when they lose against that person. They’re the people who make NaNo less enjoyable. I chose 200K for the challenge and tried to compete against Hanxa, but when I got left in the dirt I wished her the best and cheered her on, and didn’t throw a tantrum about it. I hate Nanoers who think that other people being more productive are somehow sinning because the snarker Did It By The Book. They’re like people who hate celebrities just because they’re celebrities. It’s pointless and makes you look like a jealous, petty child. Not to mention the ultimate conformist.
(And yes, I’m doing 200K again this year.)
I love “stickybeak.” It’s much more expressive than “busybody” or “nosey parker.”
I envy you. I’ve always wanted to double (though maybe not quadruple) my wordcount, since 50K really isn’t much of a challenge for me. It’s a wee stretch, when I want a real challenge. But I’ve always felt it would be unfair to my kid and my co-workers to really go for it. So this decision makes me happy–NaNo will be a little harder, but not so much that I’ll be short-changing those who have a right to expect the best I can give them.
I knew a budgie called Stickybeak! 😀
*ahem*
I admit I didn’t understand the deal with people wanting to go for 100K+ until after I’d completed my first NaNo and participated in the community a bit. I remember saying to my friend when we were just starting, “Why would you do that unless you were showing off?” The second time around, I got it that the community is just beyond awesome and people can really feed off that.
Having said that, my objection to the whole crazy word count trend while we’re on the topic – yes, I have one, and I dare you to call me envious, I DARE YOU – has nothing to do with the fact that people do it. My objection is that some people are taking it that achieving higher word counts means they have performed better than people who achieve the minimum required or hit some personal goal. If you have few other commitments, are in a good place emotionally and have lots of ideas and word count as your sole criterion for achievement, then insane word counts are totally possible. Still challenging, of course, but achievable. 110K in a month was a big deal for me last year but I didn’t have much else to occupy my time, and once I was in the zone it wasn’t unreasonably difficult. (Writing for lols totally helped, too.)
This doesn’t mean I think some of the nastiness that has gone on is acceptable. I guess my point is that I don’t think worshipping high-wordcount people is sensible, either. I do think some do it for the attention, and if we gave everyone exactly the same amount of admiration for showing up and doing their best, then we’d have a much better idea of who was genuine and a better community. After all, it is entirely about personal achievement, right?
As for the Zokutou Clause, judging from the NaNoRebels subforum created for last year, the spiritual owners of the event take that sort of thing in good humour. Having done two rewrites this year, I’ll be the first to agree that continuing an already-started story can be a massive stumbling block.
OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S ALMOST NANO.
oh yeah. I hadn’t encountered it going the other way–the only mega-wordcount person I know is Fluffy, and she’d never act like that–but I agree. Stickybeaks not welcome in any direction! NaNo is all about challenging yourself. As long as you show up and do your best, you’ve done a great thing. Whether you win or not.
And the simple truth is it’s a HECK of a lot easier for some people to write 200K in a month than it is for some to get that first 50K. We don’t all write the same way, there’s no prize money on the line, so why can’t we all just NaNo?
OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT EITHER.
Well said. NaNo is what you want it to be.
I find 50K words to be plenty challenging, but having won four times now, I like to shake it up by trying something new and different every year. (Though having said that, my two top contenders for this year don’t have new twists yet. Must think about this.) For me, I think using NaNo to try and finish a WIP would be a recipe for freezing up; but I wouldn’t rule out trying it, and I had no qualms using NaNo to do a (massive) rewrite one year.
I’m more likely to look down my nose at people who use massive amounts of song lyrics, five adjectives with every noun, or similar wordcount trickery to reach 50K. For me, that goes more against the spirit of NaNo than invoking the Zokutou Clause does. OTOH, their choices don’t actually affect me at all – the contest is only against yourself. So some people use NaNo to write fun, fluffy stuff that they never look at again, while I use it to get most of a serious first draft out of the way so I can spend the rest of the year finishing, expanding, and editing it with the intention of eventually submitting it. It’s all good.
Heh. Having held the hand of a newbie who didn’t even make 5K, and lost another to the devouring mists before 10, I don’t even care about the word-padding. Word-stealing I despise, but padding? It’s all good. Just more to edit out later.
I can’t imagine bringing an unfinished novel into NaNo. I understand where you’re coming from, but since I write YA, 50-60k is perfectly acceptable, and I’m totally fine with it. I think I need to write slower during NaNo rather than raising the wordcount. Last year, I wrote 70k overall, but mid-month, I deleted three days’ worth of progress (and I totally deleted it, removed it from the overall wordcount, everything), and that hurt. If I hadn’t been writing so much so fast, I wouldn’t gone off on such a bad tangent, and that tangent wouldn’t have been worth 8k. (And here I am, going off on tangents again. 😛 )
Anyway, I feel like starting a new draft every year is a huge part of what makes it fun. I guess writing is writing, but it’s just more like play and less like work if it’s a new novel where I can screw up all over the place without ruining a draft I really care about. However, I think invoking the Zokutou Clause is great for people who trend towards longer novels. (As for people who give others grief for daring to write more than 50k… there are no words. No nice ones, at least.) With NaNoWriMo growing to such staggering numbers, more people are going to want to write outside of the rules. NaNo purists aren’t the only folks around anymore.
The only thing that would get on my nerves is if people claim to be NaNo winners when they didn’t write 50k words of story in the month. (Call me a NaNo Nazi if you want, but if you’ve written a 50k-word nonfiction book or textbook, you have not participated in National NOVEL Writing Month.) I’m glad the NaNo staff is cool with the NaNo rebels, though. Rules are meant to be broken, I guess.
See, I still feel like I’m just starting with Hiro. Even if I already have 50,000 words.
I agree that the mad writing of a new draft is a huge part of the fun. I’m rather amazed that I want to do this. But it IS what I want to do. My muses are all gung-ho and happily coming up with insanely shiny ideas, so I’m just gonna do what the voices tell me. 😀
I love this quote!
“The only first draft that can’t be edited to brilliance is the one that doesn’t exist.”
This is going to be my signature on NaNo!
I really like your writing style and bookmarked you for a return visit!
Thank you! And welcome!