I’m
not doing Nanowrimo this year. Between college applications, keeping up with
school work, and writing the second draft of my untitled WIP, I feel like I don’t
have the time. Still, with Nanowrimo upon us, I’ve been reflecting on last year
when I somehow managed to write 50k words in thirty days. Nanowrimo taught me a
very, very, important lesson on writing: it doesn’t have to be perfect.
My
novel from last year was actually my first novel. It’s still a mess. I cringe
every time I open the document and see every writing mistake, plot-hole, and continuity
error. I’m rewriting it now and it’s barely the same story, but at least the
bones are there. At least I know where I’m going. I have an outline now (and I’m
still deviating from it a lot). I know my characters better. I’m trying not to
get ahead of myself. I’m okay with making errors.
When
I started writing my novel, I felt like everything had to be perfect on the
first draft. At least most everything. I knew there would be some grammatical errors
that I could fix in the editing stages. I didn’t know anything about writing,
but I was trying to write almost 2k words every day.
It
only took the first day for me to know I didn’t have to have everything
perfect. I just had to write it. I’d be rewriting, revising, and editing later.
Nanowrimo is about writing a first draft, getting your story down. It’s the
first step to sharing your story with the world.
