This quote came in my week 3 email from Nanowrimo. It was just what I needed to hear. See, last night I was treating myself to an entire Alice Munro short story, and getting so utterly depressed at her massive talent and my ugly wreck of a novel. But then I thought, if Alice Munro was 23 and she tried to write a 50,000 word novel in a month while working full time with three extra jobs and everything else, her book would be crap too. I don't think I quite believe it, but it's what I need to get me to keep writing when I feel like it's too silly.
"Abandon the quest for pretty sentences. Beautiful language is small-stakes writing. We're doing something epic here. We're aiming for completion. We're shooting for the dramatic arc, for the roar of the crowd, for the ticker-tape raining down on us in slow motion as we type our final sentence, run one last word count, and then close the book on a truly triumphant month. This is big. This is very big. And it's yours for the taking. But to get there, you need to give yourself permission to make messes. To write ungainly sentences and create absolutely atrocious dialogue. I know it hurts to leave ugly prose in your book. But you can polish everything to perfection next month."
1 comment:
Don't give up Carole. You're doing great. I check every day for chapter 5.
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