On november second, Laura Miller, one of the co-founders of Salon.com wrote a post that she called: ‘Better yet, Don’t write that novel‘ where she basically express that in her opinion NanoWrimo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a waste of time and energy.
I need to disagree with Laura Miller. In my modest opinion, there is a difference between a writer and a professional writer, in the same way there are athletes and professional athletes. When my mother was in mid-thirties and until her mid fifties when her back broke, she was an athlete, she was a runner and finish the New York City Marathon 3 times; but my mother was far from being a Professional Athetle, at that time I remember my mother talking about Grete Waitz, according to Wikipedia a professional Athlete that won the mentioned Marathon nine times.
I remember the training that my mother did, she run 10 miles, 13 miles, 15 miles and even more constantly and all those milles where not a waste of time, was training. I am sure Grete Waitz as well as the many other women that had win the marathon, had also train to run 10, 13 and even more miles, and never was consider a waste of time, that was training.
The same principle apply to Nanowrimo, it is practice, it is a place to be free and practice, the mistake is not in the practice, the mistake is in the people that think that they will be professional writers because they won a NanoWrimo. This is my second year in Nanowrimo, I finish my 50,000 words last year, and will finish my 50,000 this year too, but I am not expecting that the job will be on the lines of Joseph Finder or James Patterson, those are professional writers, those are people that practice the art in a total different form, in my case, and in the case of many people NanoWrimo is a place to learn, to practice, it is a place when people can come and practice, learn how hard is to write, but more importantly how hard is to write something good.
I am sure Mrs Miller, that you have also write practice words, I understand you don’t need to write 50,000 words of practice, and I respect that, but I wonder how many words you have waste over the years? I am sure; and I am sure because I have read you before, that you had waste many. All those words were not waste, actually all those were the ones that allow you to write as a professional writer, and finish the Marathon in the first place; because without those wasted words, most likely you will have never wrote what you have.
With all due respect.
Augusto Pinaud
A Fellow Writer.