There is a buzz today about a nasty little article that was written denigrating NaNo participants. You can read that here. As you might imagine it has people's dander up. One response was immediately posted here.
For my part I have only two statements:
1) The first draft of any writing is generally 'crap' in my opinion whether that is poety, prose or even music. These creative arts are not improv arts, but crafts. A true artist will 'sketch' his ideas and then craft them into something good. What NaNo teaches writers is the 'art' of sketching a novel. Whether that sketch ever becomes a true work of quality writing or not is up to the individual. I AM sure however that publishers and agents get 100s of poorly crafted manuscripts each year, whether the writer started with NaNo or not!
2) Ms Miller suggests you challenge yourself to Read More. REALLY?!?!? I already read an average of 6 books a month. Even while I am writing NaNo I continue reading - at least a chapter or 2 each night to switch gears before bed. How condescending of her to assume that I don't. What I do not do is seperate the act of writing from the act of reading - to me they are intertwined. The more I read, the more I wish to write. the more I write, the more I NEED to read.
And without further ado, today's video:
Ok... I just want to know how he found a rattlesnake anywhere near the Harlem river... or DID he?
ReplyDeleteThe plot thickens?
AStacia:
ReplyDeleteBwha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!
The first draft of any project is crap. I can't tell you how many times a composition teach has told me, you have mis-spelled this chord or think about using a different inversion ... bla, bla, bla. Their comments are almost always valid and point to the idea that dumping ideas on to paper is different than the crafting of those ideas later...
ReplyDeleteAnd in terms of 100's of poorly written novels crossing the desks of publishers - publishers are crying out they don't have enough material. Maybe that's good material, but if they want more than we ought take the chance that what we've written actually might be what their looking for rather just quit before we even get started.
Try! If you fail, ok... but if you don't even try they you already have failed. NANO is about trying and that's a good thing!