To each his own

I mentioned this in passing on Monday, but I thought it was worth dealing with head on.

The writer/reader community is so immensely supportive 99% of the time, that sometimes I forget that it's not always like that. I don't know what it was like last November, since I'd just started this blog, and had not yet discovered writer, reader and agent bloggers. But this year, it seems like everybody loves or hates nano. And there are quite a few, on either side, who are all but calling the other side idiots.

WHY I WRITE NANOWRIMO

Hi, my name is Claire and I can't commit.

Well, maybe can't is too strong a word. But commitment for me involves feeling like I want to jump off a cliff 19 days out of 20. I do not mean this figuratively.

In the last 10 years, I've lived in 3 countries. In my lifetime, I've visited 17, and 12 US states. It took 2 colleges and 6 years to do my bachelor's degree, and then just barely. I've worked in 9 jobs in 6 different fields in the last 12 years. In my school days, I was the master of the 4 month relationship. In fact, I had 3 relationships that ended at 4 months 20 days. (hmmm...)

Blame it on what you will: being bipolar, being ENFP, being a Sagittarius, etc. At the end of the day the important thing is this: either I do something fast and furious, I let the tide carry me through it, or I don't do it at all.

I want to write books. Having twenty 10,000 word starts is really not an option, and you can't really drift along in writing. So it's nano or nothing. Even if there was no nano, that would be my only choice for writing.

You know I swear by my nano.

But does that mean you should do it, too? Not unless it's for you, for whatever reason.

Writing is subjective. If it wasn't, every book ever published would be a bestseller. There would be a scientific way to determine what was great in a novel, and no publishing company would ever take on anything else. The fact that there are bestsellers and prizewinners that we don't like, proves the subjectivity of this business.

Yet, somehow, some people are missing the subjectivity of the writing process.

I have friends who plot everything down to every single time the character blows his/her nose. There are others who start with nothing more than a name and a premise. And there are a tons of others in between these extremes.

For some people the beauty of each word used is the most important thing. For others, the story matters most.

Some people favour reading and writing great characters, some people lean towards great plots. And some aren't willing to sacrifice one for the other.

Some people will spend 8 years researching and writing a novel. Some others will crank one out in 15 days.

Maybe you write only what you know. Maybe you're writing about a country you've never visited.

What does it matter?

I don't care if your only prewriting process is standing on your head in your Wonderwoman underwear, or if you dance by the light of the moon to kill your writers' block.

Your process is only important to you.

All I care about is the awesomesauce book you'll have at the end.