I didn't participate in NaNoWriMo this year, nor have I for any of the years since it began. I'm not sure if I ever will, actually. It just seems like I might wind up horribly maimed in some way or, worst case scenario, dead. I think the underlying idea is a good one though: work like hell on your novel. This is Xtreme Novel Writing, man. It's rad and kewl and stuff. But is novel writing really supposed to be any of those things? I kind of think not. Then again maybe it should be, dammit.

For those of you who don't know, the gist of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-page novel in the 30-day window also known as "November." And for this marathon of writing it's all about how much you produce, and not how well you produce it. From their Web site: "Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

I have mixed feelings about the approach. There's definitely something to be said for automatic writing. It helps free up the mind and can take you in some interesting directions. But I'm not sure doing it every day for thirty days is a valuable exercise, particularly when it comes to writing a novel. Any long-form writing needs some kind of cohesion and requires a bit of analytical, left-brained thought mixed in with the intuitive, right-brained free-for-all. So if you go into NaNoWriMo with the idea that you'll have "a novel" at the end of it, I think it can only lead to disappointment. But if you approach it with the idea that at the end of it you'll have a huge pile of raw text — some of it good, most of it crap, but all of it a "launching pad" — then I can see how this could be a really great thing, particularly if you're just starting a new project. And I definitely respect those people who put their fears and reservations aside and committed themselves to this grand display of self-torture, like Lara.

My own writing project, which saw some pretty good progress in 2006 and early 2007 has since stalled. There's smoke coming from under the hood. It's making a hissing sound. And now it also has a flat tire. Damn. There are many reasons I could cite as to why. One is that I got completely side-tracked on a really big Web project this summer and that pretty much consumed all of my creative brain cycles. Then there has been the small matter of selling our newly-purchased home and looking for a new place to live — the second time in six months. But these are just excuses. I have to say that, despite my reservations and multiple reasons why I couldn't do it this year, I'm realizing now that NaNoWriMo probably would have been a pretty good exercise for me at this point in my project and might have helped me out of my dry spell, assuming of course that I managed to stay alive during it. Maybe I can begin my own personal writing month after we move, because after reading these two "Pep Talks," one from Neil Gaiman and the other from one of my all-time favorites, Tom Robbins, I'm feeling kind of, well . . . pepped.

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