The NaNo Thoughts #1: Write & Relax

You knew it was coming. What did I learn through NaNoWriMo? What are my thoughts? (I mean, it is a blog. It's where I put my thoughts.)

I wish I could put all the thoughts in order and post them every day in a method that both told the story of my NaNo experience as well as gave one point per post. I can't. I don't have that much time to plan that many posts. So, having to pick one, I'm going with a point per post.

Thought #1: I learned how to write and relax.

I have a fairly loud inner editor, and I love her to death. I appreciate her even more, now, since I've written an entire novel while ignoring her. She keeps elbowing me saying, "Look at that. It's crappy. See what you can't do without me!" And yes, I'm agreeing with her. I see what life is like without her.

However, without her, there's a certain element of freedom without her. I can write whatever I want. I can spend paragraphs introducing characters I'll never see again, describe dresses to my heart's content, create one-dimensional characters, have completely unbelievable changes of heart, and skip all sense of reality when spending nights in blizzards are involved. Oh yeah.

I mean, yeah, the novel (I'm not sure it's even that) sucks. I know that. I know why it sucks. I know how I could have made it better, but making it better wasn't the point. The point was doing what I love to do but don't get to do very often: just going. Just going where the story takes me and who cares about plotlines and grammar and adverbs and rules.

It. Was. Epic.

I got to write a story that no one will ever read, just for the fun of writing it. I don't even plan to read it, at least not for a long time, because that's not why I wrote it. I wrote it to write it. That's all. To just go and accept plot mangling when it comes. (That person wasn't in the room a minute ago. How'd they get there?)

So that's my first thought. Writing is fun. November was my month to have fun again, without caring about the rules. It's like...being a kid again, in a sense. Being a young writer again and remembering how that felt.

Writing is fun. Every once in a while, you've just got to write and relax.