Is Your Story Worth It? (Test Post)

10:31 AM Gemma Fitz 0 Comments

(So this post is going up late, but better late than never.)

And this makes me sad. It makes me sad because it's a lie. It makes me sad because it scares people. And it makes me sad because just about this time in the month, when my motivation has dried up, my plot disappeared, and every word I write looks like trash, I start believing it's true.

Maybe you're there, too. Maybe you're wondering why you ever thought this NaNo thing was a good idea. Maybe you're wondering how 50,000 words written in a 30 day lapse of sanity, powered by coffee and chocolate, can ever become something beautiful.

For you, the fearful, the discouraged, I have a question.

Is your story worth it?

That's really the standard here. It doesn't matter whether you write a novel in 30 days or 30 years. It doesn't matter whether the first draft is spotless or a complete garbage dump. It doesn't matter how long it is, how old you are, how much experience you have-- what matters is is it worth it?

Why are you writing this story? Why does it matter? Why did you originally fall in love with this idea? Maybe you have a message you want to share with the world. That matters. Maybe you wanted to prove to yourself or somebody else that you could do it-- you could write a novel! That's important. Maybe you're just doing it for fun, because it seemed like a cool thing to do. That's worth it, too. 

There are any number of reasons you started writing this month, and believe me, whatever it was that got you started, it was worth it. It was worth starting, it was worth getting those words on the page.

And now you get to decide. Is it worth finishing? Or, to put it another way, is it so utterly worthless that you could actually bring yourself to give up now? Do you love your characters that little? Is your message of so little importance to you? Do you really want to miss out on this opportunity to write a real book-- or at least give it your best shot? Are you really happy with giving up?

There's a reason writers (and other artists!) experience fear. We're writers! We live scary lives! We put so much of ourselves on paper-- all our talent, or lack of it, so much of what we believe, so much of what we love, so much of everything that matters to us. And for many of us, we've defined success as having someone else read that piece of paper, which has so much of our identities wrapped up in it, and actually like it.

And if they don't?

As writers, we can't afford to be afraid. We can't afford to doubt ourselves. We can't afford insecurity. Because as soon as we let the fear creep in, our entire way of life is in danger. Once the doubt takes hold, it's far, far too easy for us to give up. And so we don't let ourselves be scared. We give ourselves anti-fear pep talks. We tell ourselves that we're doing great.

And then somebody walks in and says that NaNoWriMo can only produce a bad story. And then we start to believe him.

Now, does NaNoWriMo make you write a bad story? Here's the hard answer: yes. But not in the way people say it does. Every story you write is going to be a bad story. I'm sorry. It is going to be. No story starts out perfect. First drafts are ugly. But that doesn't mean you should give up.

Something my pastor says all the time is, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly." If your story is worth writing, it's worth writing in 30 days and making a mess of. It's worth trying to write in 30 days and failing miserably. It's worth never participating in NaNo and taking years to complete. It's worth never completing at all. It's worth it.

NaNo doesn't have to make you write a good story. The beauty of NaNo is that it motivates you to write a story, no matter how sucky it may seem. You wrote something. Maybe 50k of sparkling, witty genius. Maybe 100 words of dry, worthless mediocrity. It doesn't matter, because you wrote something.

Is you story is worth it? If so, don't let anyone tell you your doing it wrong.