NaNoWriMoHateBlo

That’s National Novel Writing Month Hate Blogging, which seems to be a hot new trend. Look here, here, here, here, here, and, most surprisingly of all, here. (This last contains an open letter to the organizer beginning, “Every year when you run your event, I cringe.”)

Okay, I know Anne Crispin means well, and I’m usually in total support of her crusade against literary scammers, and have pointed blog readers to many of her alerts. But I can’t help but be disappointed that she thinks a) that it’s somehow a mandate on the part of the organizers to keep participants from being scammed by publishers, and b) that they aren’t. Ever since I’ve joined NaNo, I’ve seen a big spot on the forums dedicated to informing members about industry scams. There’s info out there on the NaNo site for people who want to avoid scam artists, so I think Writer Beware sounded foolish and needlessly confrontational by admonishing the program for not doing something that, in fact, they were, and that, in fact, really has very little to do with their mission statement.

Which is the point. It’s like telling a company that gives out free makeup tips that they have a responsiblity to warn the people who learn how to put on mascara from their website about those creeps who claim they’re from modeling agencies and just want to take dirty pictures. They’re just a makeup tip site. They aren’t telling people to become models! Why should they be responsible for not only determining what could be the long term consequences of their entirely altruistic attempts, and also attempting to prevent it? It’s this attitude that results in there being text on all of my grocery bags that say, “This is not a toy. Do not place over head or breathing may become inhibited.”

As far as I’m concerned, having any info at all available about the publishing industry is not the purpose of the program, and the organizers should be applauded for making it available at all. I’ve done NaNo for two years now, and the vast, vast majority of people I’ve met at write-ins and on the forums, are doing this for FUN. They have no interest in selling their product.

This, however, appears to be the major complain of most of the other hatahs. “NaNo tries to convince people that anyone can write a novel.” “It’s disrespectful to the real writers.”

Well, I’m a “real” writer — a full time, professional, this-is-how-I-pay-my-rent published novelist, and I’m not offended. The truth is, almost anyone can write “a novel,” a book-length work of fiction. In the same way that almost anyone can take a canvas and splatter paint on it and call it art. Anyone can pick up a basketball and make a couple of free throws in their driveway. Not everyone can be Michael Jordan. Yeah, I get offended when people act like my job is easy. But if someone tells me that they want to write a novel, I tell them that they should give it a whirl.

And that’s the point of NaNoWriMo. Those people whose life lists include “write a novel” are given an opportunity and a support group in which to help them do it. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be silly. It’s, above all, an amateur event. It’s free. these people are, for the most part, hobbyists. It’s not about bringing down the profession, any more than people who play pick up football games on thanksgiving Day are supposed to be an affront to the NFL. They’re doing it for fun. It’s not National Write a Publishable Novel Month. It’s a lark. Lighten up. Those pro writers that I’ve met are using NaNoWriMo as a tool to help them increase their word count or etc, but I think we’re not the majority of participants.

Lay off the NaNo people. They’re doing a great thing, and they’re doing it for free. Just because some people choose not to understand the point does not make it a bad program.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. This is the type of attitude that has almost sunk the amateur artist. The guy who just wants to take out his easel and his oils and paint crappy sunsets because, hey, it’s fun, and it keeps him off the streets. But there’s so much pressure to PERFORM, so much fear that someone else will say it sucks, that it’s somehow embarrassing to do it. You’re not going to be any good, you’re not going to be a professional, so why bother?

This was a hard lesson I had to learn last year. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a good artist. I can’t draw stick figures. But my old co-worker is a great artist. She does all kinds of amazing artwork, sells quite a lot of it, and has a studio in her basement. And she regularly invites her friends down to make art with her. You know, because art is fun. She loves doing it, she loves sharing, etc. At first, I was really embarrassed about doing it. After all, I was, um, not a good artist. But then I got down there and I saw all kinds of people on all kinds of levels making all kinds of art — some were serious about it or proud of their work or were having fun with it or a mix of all of that or were just glad to be doing arts and crafts like they hadn’t allowed themselves to do since they were in grade school, because they, like me, were told that it’s “disrespectful” to the real artists to produce stuff for fun.

Bullshit. Do it for fun if you want. Paint, or take tap dancing, or throw a football around, or write in a journal, or write poetry, or take pictures, or run a marathon, or stargaze or cook gorumet meals or write a novel. Why not? There’s no law. It doesn’t hurt anyone. Robert Levin and Savion Glover and Mike Alstott and David Sedaris and Maya Angelou and Annie Leibovitz and Jelena Prokopcuka and Phil Nicholson and Mario Batali and Stephen King will not be offended if you make a hobby of their chosen professional field. I promise.

Art can be fun. Long before I made this my job, I wrote stories for fun. Sometimes I showed my parents, or my friends, or no one at all, because the point was the doing of it. Choosing it as a profession brings all kinds of different requirements into the mix. Understanding the difference is a good thing. The problem is not making it a hobby; it’s confusing the hobby with the profession.