Hi Writer,
It’s here! Our month of literary abandon is finally upon us.
My name is Chris Baty. I founded NaNoWriMo in 1999 and ran it for many overcaffeinated years before departing in 2012. Now I’m one of the volunteers working on NaNo 2.0.
I’m also an excited, terrified participant in this year’s challenge. If you, like me, are wondering if you really have the time or talent to tackle a ginormous writing project in November, I have good news for you.
You don’t have to write anything this month.
Nope.
Because your imagination will be taking care of it for you.
Even better: It started on your project long ago, amassing stacks of intriguing ideas and reams of book-worthy material.
So you and your imagination are going to accomplish some writerly magic together this month. To pull it off, though, your imagination will need a couple things from you:
- Typing help.
- Permission to make messes.
Yep. For all its vast creative powers, your imagination is a terrible typist. If you’ve ever watched a cerebral miasma try to operate a keyboard, it’s not pretty. So your biggest job in November will be to find a comfortable chair and use those human typing appendages—or clear dictation voice—to transcribe the rich well of ideas spilling out from your imagination.
Those ideas may come slowly at first. But as long as you keep typing, they’ll always come.
Which brings me to your imagination’s other request. You need to let those ideas be messy.
This will be hard. We’re writers. We know what great writing looks like. A lot of the stuff our imaginations will be handing us this month is…not that.
And that’s perfect.
I’ve talked to so many authors whose NaNoWriMo drafts have gone on to become beloved novels, appearing on bestseller lists and airport bookstore shelves. Every single one of those beautiful books started out as incredibly messy first drafts.
Stories are built in stages, and the first draft is all about exploration and trying out a bunch of things to see what works. So if your NaNoWriMo project feels like a chaotic disaster at times or your sentences read like a crime against literature, know that you’re exactly where you should be. Just keep going.
Have a wonderful first week, writer! I’ll be back next Saturday with a few thoughts on Week Two.
Off to find a comfortable writing chair,
Chris
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