I’m a NaNo Rebel
After seven years of participation, five of them successful, I decided to go against NaNo rules this year and be a rebel.
The rules say write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. Forum moderators further defined “novel” as “a work of fiction”.
For this year, I want to write non-fiction. Which makes me a NaNo Rebel. Altho I’m not the only one. There are so many of us, there’s even a discussion forum, called NaNo Rebels, just for us.
Actually, I’m only half a rebel …
You see, I’ve decided I want to write fiction, instead. Oh yah, that makes me a non-rebel. Wait …
I also don’t want to abandon the non-fiction plans. So …
I’m writing two – one fiction and the other non-fiction.
So I’m a half-rebel. To celebrate my status, I can use both the regular participant badge, the NaNo Rebel badge.
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To be honest, I was a little nervous about the non-fiction piece. Hopefully, writing a fiction piece alongside it might help.
Why nervous?
With fiction, I can make things up and easily write 50,000 words (I’ve done this five times before).
With non-fiction, I can’t. Non-fiction is factual, and I can’t make up facts. So there’s the worry – do I have enough facts to write 50,000 words for my non-fiction piece?
Well, I was nervous. But not anymore. At this point on this first day of NaNoWriMo 2009, I have actually written more words for my non-fiction NaNo attempt than for my fiction NaNo (altho both have passed the daily word quota of 1,667 words). And I didn’t make anything up in the non-fiction NaNo.
I’ve discovered that it’s more than cold, hard facts that make up a piece of non-fiction writing. It’s also observations, reactions, maybe even a bit of self-indulgent navel-gazing.
I almost cried when I realised I have written more for the non-fiction NaNo than the fiction NaNo. But the day is not over yet, and I have more words eager to spill out!
My personal daily word target for both is actually 2,000 words. I’ve reached that for today’s non-fiction NaNo, but need another 100 words or so for the fiction NaNo.
A word about making things up for fiction
I speak from personal experience what Julia Cameron says about art (in my case, writing) not being about thinking something up, but the opposite – getting something down.
I don’t need to think up a story – well, okay, I need characters and some semblance of a plot – I just need to sit down and write. Okay, I also need the first few words, but more than once (many times!), I’ve found the next word appearing in my head and I just need to write that down, and the next word appears, and I write that down, too. Next thing I know, I’ve written a sentence, and then a paragraph …
I’m not saying I write quality stuff, but at least I have a first draft to shape into something more coherent.
Having said the above, I actually find myself doing anything but writing, but when I eventually sit myself down to write, and I type out the first word, the above is what I experience. Why can’t I sit down more often to write?
That’s a mystery to me.
