It’s also NaNoWriMo. If you don’t know what that is, follow the link and then come back. Okay. Everyone all caught up? Good.

I’ve never said much about NaNo, because I have such mixed feelings about it. There are authors who’ve openly disparaged it, and there are other authors who do it every year to churn out drafts of new books. I don’t participate, because NaNo doesn’t work with my “process,” which I think might sound sort of snotty, but it’s TRUE.

That’s why I’m so iffy on the whole thing. Of course, I support the idea of people who want to write taking the plunge and drafting a novel. I think that’s great! Aspiring authors, I cheer for you! Yay, words! Yay, writing! Yay, art!

But . . . to participate in NaNo, you have to write 1,750 words a day, every day, for the entire moth. That’s how you get a 50,000 word draft and “win.” 1,750 words is a lot. That would be a lot for *me*, every single day, and this is MY JOB and I’m used to doing it regularly. I write, on average, 1,500 words a day, five days a week. Yeah, some people write faster than that. Someday, I might, too. When I started writing seriously, my daily goal was 250 words. ONE PAGE. That’s it. I knew if I did that five days a week, I could have a novel in less than a year. And the thing was, it was realistic. It was accomplishable.

Writing is like any form of exercise – you know how fitness experts are always recommending that people start small, with realistic, accomplishable goals? They suggest that so that you don’t burn out and give up altogether. It’s nearly impossible to go from couch potato status to running 5k every day and eating salad for lunch and steamed chicken for dinner. It feels GREAT for a few days, but then one day, maybe your left ankle’s bugging you and you can’t run, or your mom has a birthday dinner with lasagna, and because your plan is ALL OR NOTHING, you end up picking nothing, and you’re right back on the couch.

This is not an unusual story, but it’s EXACTLY what NaNo encourages people to do. NaNoWriMo is the crash diet of the writing world.

I’m sure there are people for whom this sort of adrenaline-fueled sprint is just the thing they needed to achieve good writing habits and publishing success. I think for most people, though, they end up either 1) quitting because they can’t maintain the pace, feeling like a failure, and giving up the dream altogether, or 2) pushing themselves through to the end, and feeling like they’ve drained themselves and abandoned the rest of their lives just to end up with a crappy draft that needs to be completely rewritten anyway. (NB: All first drafts need to be rewritten. IT’S FINE TO WRITE A CRAPPY DRAFT. The point is that if you feel so used up by the process that you can’t bear to start again, that’s no good.)

Because the reality is, once you finish your novel, it’s not done. Every year, agents start complaining in December, because they’re getting queries seeking representation for novels that were written AS FAST AS POSSIBLE the month before. NaNo books aren’t ready for querying. People who don’t know that, people who thought that finishing the draft/winning NaNo was the end of it, they get crushed when they realize that it was just a start.

If NaNo works for you, great. If it doesn’t, you don’t “lose.” Failing at NaNo is not the same as failing at writing, but it sure makes things feel that way.

Please, by all means, write. Please, figure out the maximum time you can devote to it and do that. And you’ll get faster. My personal word count minimum has crept higher and higher. It’s like adding miles to a one hour run. Eventually, you get faster. You get used to it. Eventually a nine minute mile is easy. Then an eight minute mile. But not right away. You don’t win a marathon the first time you strap on your running shoes.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is either full of crap or participating in NaNo.

Now go have a piece of pie, and then get back to your novel.

I write for lots of reasons.

Because  love it. Because it helps me to make sense of the world. Because it makes the inside of my head a calmer and more focused place. Because it’s fun. Because I get paid to do it (not that I wouldn’t do it anyway, but hey, there are days when I don’t feel like writing, but I – you know – have to.)

I also write – and this is right on the verge of getting sort of emo, so bear with me – I also write because when I do, it feels like I’m in my own particular right place, in my own particular right role, doing my own particular right work. I’ve done so many other things, so many other jobs, where I was such a square peg in a round hole that it actually hurt. Writing fits me. Call it dharma, call it bashert, but it all means the same thing. This is my right path, no matter how hard it is.

Now it’s your turn. Why do you write? Leave a comment or follow the conversation on Twitter (#whyiwrite)

There are lots of weird, scary things about new projekts, always. There are lots of weird, scary things about *this* one. But that first person, present tense is foremost among them.

I realize that this means I am afraid of a grammatical tense.

Is there anything wussier than that? *sigh*

****************

From here on out, every time I have a rush of thought/inspiration/words, I will refer to it as a “brain-sneeze.”

Best. Husband. Ever.

Other days, it’s more like full-contact eel wrestling.

Today was an eel wrestling day. Don’t get me wrong – I always love it. The eel wresting just takes more out of me.

I have been working on an *entirely new novel*, THE GATHERING DARK, and it will be published by Simon Pulse! It’s scheduled for release in the autumn of 2012, and I am unbelievably freaking excited about it!

What’s it about you ask? This:

Okay, I know that was kind of cryptic. Here’s the blurb from Publisher’s Marketplace:
Christine Johnson’s THE GATHERING DARK, about a gifted pianist who discovers that she and the mysterious boy she’s falling for are part of an alternate world made from dark matter, and in a race of love against fear, she must somehow save her life without losing herself.

Yep. It’s about hot guys and dark matter and music and I am SO. BEYOND. EXCITED. about this book.

*pops champagne* *passes out cupcakes* *dances on table*

Now, excuse me while I get back to writing it!

So, this is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no 17 in D minor, The Tempest. I love the whole piece, but the 3rd movement, the Allegretto, is my favorite. Soon I hope to be able to get the piano from my mother’s house and move it into my den. If I do, once I knock the rust off my playing, this will be the second piece I try to learn. The first, of course, will be Claire de Lune. I never did play any Debussy – my piano teacher didn’t much care for his music.

As always, if you like it, please download this music from some legitimate source! Thanks.

Guitar Hero by Amanda Palmer

Criminal by The Roots

Someday You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie

Leeds United by Amanda Palmer (again)

Except that I was supposed to. It was not a scheduled day off (I give myself scheduled breaks after big deadlines.) Nothing catastrophic happened that made it legitimate to play hooky (kids getting sick and needing care is the usual situation for that one.) And – the kicker – I had help with the kids, which meant I had daytime hours to write.

I sat down. I fooled around on Twitter for a few minutes, updating stuff about Friday’s big  Month-a-versary THING for Claire de Lune. And then I opened my pages file and started to write.

It sucked.

I started checking my word count FIFTY WORDS IN. My personal daily requirement on days I have childcare is 1,000 words. Preferably more. It was baaaaaaad. But I believe in working every day, so I slogged on. Trudge.

Trudge.

Trudge.

Two hundred words.

Trudge.

Trudge.

Three hundred words.

BAM! LIGHTNING BOLT! And then I wrote seven hundred words in about forty-five minutes and kept going and was DYING for the kids to go to bed because even though I had my thousand words plus some, I was on FIRE.

This is why I write every day, even when I don’t feel like it. Sometimes that breakthrough comes at three hundred words. Sometimes at seven hundred. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all, and it’s just WORK, but there’s still a thousand words to show for it, and sometimes those hardest-earned ones feel the best afterwards.

Writing isn’t something that happens in little sparkly-lit, cloud-scented moments of perfect inspiration. I’ve said over and over that waiting for that to happen is a fool’s errand. Inspiration doesn’t come around to make me work, it comes around because I AM WORKING.

Everyone out there who wants to be a writer and wants to know how I got here? I put my butt in the chair, and I WRITE. Even when I don’t want to. Even when it’s terrible. And days like today prove to me why I still do it that way, every day.