| NaNoWriMo, though a net positive force in the world, strikes me as a creative exercise for non-creatives. Truly not a bad thing, no offense intended. Trying to create regularly will help you become more creative. However, if you're already someone that is able to maintain a writing schedule and hit daily targets of hundreds of words, and can see your dream works emerge through the simple act of scheduling... I'm gently skeptical of where your motivation to create comes from. Bear with me. Before we get bogged down in it: Misery and disorder are not requisites for creativity and I'm certainly not advocating that, either. The issue is that trying to hit some sort of material target by artificially imposing a daily grind on it forces your work into a box created by the work-a-day-world. An undeniably effective one, but for everything? The global marketplace is what sets deadlines like "by the end of the day!" and "by the end of the month!" where as works of art and creators can both bloom like flowers and get seasoned over large segments of time like waves washing over a rock face. Your arc as an artist or creator, starting from the discovery of that impulse inside yourself, may be one that spans decades or your entire life. If that's the case, success or failure in NanoWriMo may be a bad indicator for you: "Oh shit, I missed my 7pm writing alarm and forgot to write ~1700 words, now I'll never be the next Charles Dickens!" could come from the same writer as: "After a slow walk through my city on a crisp fall morning, I can sit down and write 5000 words without so much as stopping to stretch my wrist." and: "I don't practice art regularly, but sometimes when I get the urge, I will be in the throes for 3 days trying to work out the specifics of an image that has flashed into my mind." These and many other creative modes are valid and exist independently of schedules, clocks, word counts, time limits and other cops we might invite to sit by our writing desks, easels and computer terminals. |