The air is crisp and cool, and I’m feeling inspired. Most likely this is a conditioned response, from years of joining in the November writing challenges: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and the PAD (Poem-a-Day) November Challenge. I’m a huge fan of these two exciting writing adventures. Both have thousands of participants around the world.

Of course, when you tell people that you intend to write 50,000 words in 30 days, or that you are going to write a poem a day for one month, you receive a variety of responses. Some think it sounds cool; others are blown away. Some think you’re nuts. Family and friends may be angry that you’ve decided to “waste time” writing fiction or poetry that “will never be good enough to be published anyway” – especially since they have so many other things they’d like to do with you instead.  

While one could write about the wide variety of NaNoWriMo haters, in this post, I want to address the real writers who look down on NaNoWriMo and the PAD challenge. Because let’s face it – non-writers are not going to understand why you’d want to spend hours writing. But writers should.

And yet, I’ve met many writers who see NaNoWriMo and the PAD challenges in November and April as ridiculous. They look down on the challenges, see people who participate in them as silly, and generally get moody about what should be seen as a fun, creative opportunity to build enthusiasm for the written word.

No doubt, some of these writers are feeling defensive and protective. “All those people think they know what it means to write a novel, but they have no idea what it takes to write a real novel.”

For those that feel defensive, whose egos are bruised at the idea of a bunch of amateurs attempting to write a novel, I don’t have much to say. I’m pretty darn sure that NaNoWriMo writers don’t think they are writing Pulitzer Prize winning first drafts, and even if some of them do, I don’t see why that should matter to anyone but their poor families, who need to deal with their humongous egos.

Other “real” writers who struggle with the idea of NaNoWriMo see the endeavor as a waste of writing time. “All you can write is junk-food-lit in such a challenge. What is the point of writing 50,000 words of rubbish?”

Actually, that is the point. To write 50,000 words of rubbish.

NaNoWriMo and the PAD Challenge are just free writing exercises that last 30 days. And because you're doing it with thousands around the world, it's thrilling and motivating. Writing teachers love to talk about free writing to newbies, but then, they begin to see free writing as beneath them. They start to believe that every word or sentence must be literary and beautifully constructed, if not at this moment, then very soon.

It’s the real writers who need NaNoWriMo more than anyone else. Because when you become a real writer, it becomes difficult to ignore the inner critic. In fact, I imagine that most professional writers have several inner adversaries. There’s the inner agent, telling them that their idea will never sell. There’s the inner editor, marking up their ideas with red pen before they even reach the page. There’s the inner book reviewer, going on and on about how boring their plot is and how flat their characters are on the page. There’s the inner gate keeper or reader, sending off a form letter rejection before they’ve gotten past the first sentence.

NaNo and PAD are an opportunity to remember why you started writing in the first place. They are there to help you remember how much fun writing can be, before you became all serious about it. Writing challenges like NaNo help bring back some of the enthusiasm you had for words before you knew what you were doing, before you had editors to please, and before you ever contemplated book reviewers or award committees.

The point of NaNo and PAD isn’t to write a novel that will sell or a poem that will move mountains (though it does and has happened.) The point is to banish those inner demons and just create. Just let the words flow and flow. The point is to train the inner voices to hush, or at least train yourself to write despite their chatter.

Now, if you’re already writing 50,000 words a month, or already producing a poem a day, then NaNoWriMo and the PAD Challenge probably seem dull. You’re already doing it.

But if you’re not writing 50,000 words a month, if you’re not writing at least one crappy verse a day. If you’re spending hours or days or months revising one page or paragraph of work before moving on, creating less fiction or poetry than you truly dream of producing, then I want to encourage you to give the November writing challenge a try.

Who knows what magic may occur when you ignore those inner censors and let your fingers fly.

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