First off, that deleted comment was precious. And makes a good point: Just doodling and just writing for fun is no big deal and doesn't deserve derision. People who think they are Such Hot Shit for doing NaNoWriMo? Do. (So do people who think they're Such Hot Shit for getting published.) I've written over 50 fan fics just for fun, and been a slash fan for 9 years. It doesn't hurt a fly. Don't like it, don't look at it. But it's nothing for me to beat my chest and scream about.
That said? I've written novels. I've written 150K worth of novel--in less than 3 weeks. After 4 months of daily research. And then I edited it for 2 months after that. I used it as a submission, and it got me into Johns Hopkins, where I earned my MA in Fiction Writing. So, I've studied writing in academia for 6 years. I've been published. I have worked for 4 years in the publishing industry, both fiction and non. I've edited about 40 novels. So, I think I have a pretty good handle on what makes a "real novels writer" and the standards of the profession.
And unfortunately, everything James said is correct. He could have said it in a much more respectful way, and not lumped all NaNoWriMo writers together as ego-stroking amateurs, but yes, real writers write. You can write a lot, but if you don't put any value on the quality of what you're writing, you are, in a sense, merely creating more toilet paper. So, you can call yourself a writer, but you’re a bad writer. Maybe after that month of furious writing, you go back and edit the hell out of whatever you banged out, in which case, awesome! That is very cool that you used the exercise to create something you later made shine. But it isn't a novel. Not unless you’re writing for the tween market in large print.
A word count of 50K is novella length. A novel is always over 300 published pages. Period. Been the standard since the publishing industry got over the platen press fad. That's not an evaluation of merit or effort of 30-50K works (those are personally my favorite to write), but I can understand the frustration when writers who are not professionals boast, "I wrote a novel in 30 days and it's 175 pages!" Um, great, but that's not a novel.
And the whole line in the NaNoWriMo rules about mocking published authors who take forever to nitpick their craft? Maybe that was sarcasm and maybe it wasn't. But, from the other side, as one of those authors? I’d really love to say: Fuck you, NaNoWriMo Rules. Yeah, mock away, as you and your very self-important, quickly banged-out, prevaricated “novels” slowly fade into Internet obscurity—your place in the NaNoWriMo hall of fame for writing 50K worth of unedited words in 30 days being your crowning achievement. I'll be over here, on stores’ bookshelves and in literary college classes, possibly being reprinted until the end of time and changing the direction of experimental modular prose, or possibly flopping and never being mentioned again. But you won’t hear me mocking other writers’ process. (You WILL hear me mock the quality of their results.)
Dude, what’s the point in either party mocking each other? You enjoy doing NaNoWriMo? Do it. You want to be a published author? Do it. I promise you, one is INFINITELY harder than the other. Want to guess which one? It’s the one where you have to learn all the rules of grammar before you can break them, adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style format and punctuation rules, get an agent or brave the slush pile, and keep on submitting even after hearing rejection after rejection. Honestly, anyone who can read and owns a keyboard can write just anything for 175 pages in 720 hours. It may be challenging, but if it’s TOO challenging, don’t even think about trying to get published. You’re too tender. To get published, you better be prepared to get ignored, ripped apart, changed, tweaked, censored, and edited, and all for what? About $10K plus royalties after your first print run?
To each their own. Just stop crowing about how one kind of writing is more worthy/ real/ entertaining/ important than the other. If your work is crap, people won’t keep reading or buying it. Period. Trust the readers to decide what’s “real” and “good” writing, and stop ragging on each other.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My mini rant ^_^
Date: 2007-11-06 06:21 pm (UTC)First off, that deleted comment was precious. And makes a good point: Just doodling and just writing for fun is no big deal and doesn't deserve derision. People who think they are Such Hot Shit for doing NaNoWriMo? Do. (So do people who think they're Such Hot Shit for getting published.) I've written over 50 fan fics just for fun, and been a slash fan for 9 years. It doesn't hurt a fly. Don't like it, don't look at it. But it's nothing for me to beat my chest and scream about.
That said? I've written novels. I've written 150K worth of novel--in less than 3 weeks. After 4 months of daily research. And then I edited it for 2 months after that. I used it as a submission, and it got me into Johns Hopkins, where I earned my MA in Fiction Writing. So, I've studied writing in academia for 6 years. I've been published. I have worked for 4 years in the publishing industry, both fiction and non. I've edited about 40 novels. So, I think I have a pretty good handle on what makes a "real novels writer" and the standards of the profession.
And unfortunately, everything James said is correct. He could have said it in a much more respectful way, and not lumped all NaNoWriMo writers together as ego-stroking amateurs, but yes, real writers write. You can write a lot, but if you don't put any value on the quality of what you're writing, you are, in a sense, merely creating more toilet paper. So, you can call yourself a writer, but you’re a bad writer. Maybe after that month of furious writing, you go back and edit the hell out of whatever you banged out, in which case, awesome! That is very cool that you used the exercise to create something you later made shine. But it isn't a novel. Not unless you’re writing for the tween market in large print.
A word count of 50K is novella length. A novel is always over 300 published pages. Period. Been the standard since the publishing industry got over the platen press fad. That's not an evaluation of merit or effort of 30-50K works (those are personally my favorite to write), but I can understand the frustration when writers who are not professionals boast, "I wrote a novel in 30 days and it's 175 pages!" Um, great, but that's not a novel.
And the whole line in the NaNoWriMo rules about mocking published authors who take forever to nitpick their craft? Maybe that was sarcasm and maybe it wasn't. But, from the other side, as one of those authors? I’d really love to say: Fuck you, NaNoWriMo Rules. Yeah, mock away, as you and your very self-important, quickly banged-out, prevaricated “novels” slowly fade into Internet obscurity—your place in the NaNoWriMo hall of fame for writing 50K worth of unedited words in 30 days being your crowning achievement. I'll be over here, on stores’ bookshelves and in literary college classes, possibly being reprinted until the end of time and changing the direction of experimental modular prose, or possibly flopping and never being mentioned again. But you won’t hear me mocking other writers’ process. (You WILL hear me mock the quality of their results.)
Dude, what’s the point in either party mocking each other? You enjoy doing NaNoWriMo? Do it. You want to be a published author? Do it. I promise you, one is INFINITELY harder than the other. Want to guess which one? It’s the one where you have to learn all the rules of grammar before you can break them, adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style format and punctuation rules, get an agent or brave the slush pile, and keep on submitting even after hearing rejection after rejection. Honestly, anyone who can read and owns a keyboard can write just anything for 175 pages in 720 hours. It may be challenging, but if it’s TOO challenging, don’t even think about trying to get published. You’re too tender. To get published, you better be prepared to get ignored, ripped apart, changed, tweaked, censored, and edited, and all for what? About $10K plus royalties after your first print run?
To each their own. Just stop crowing about how one kind of writing is more worthy/ real/ entertaining/ important than the other. If your work is crap, people won’t keep reading or buying it. Period. Trust the readers to decide what’s “real” and “good” writing, and stop ragging on each other.
The end.