NaNoWriMo - Pros (Sort of...well, not really)

Here's a response to the Salon.com post advising people not to participate in National Novel Writing Month:

12 reasons to ignore the naysayers

I think this post is somewhat contradictory.  A quote: "The only thing 'writing a lot of crap' can genuinely be said to be less fruitful than is writing well."

Another quote: "Miller writes: 'The last thing the world needs is more bad books.'  The last thing the world needs? We have war and disease and greed and hunger.  Books, even bad books, are hardly our biggest problem."

So early in the post, we are expected to only consider the pursuit of writing when we make our comparison (writing crap versus writing well).  But in a response to the Salon.com post, we are required to broaden our horizons and consider war and disease and so forth, and not just writing.  You can't have it both ways and still make your point.  (I can think of a lot of things that are more fruitful than "writing a lot of crap.")

I suppose I can see both sides of the issue.  Maybe some people who really do have good stories to tell, lack the motivation to get started on their own.  Maybe the NaNoWriMo community really does foster creativity and a shared base of support.  And sure, the NaNoWriMo people say you should edit.  But here's another case where Carolyn Kellogg (the author of the blog post I'm critiquing) wants to have it both ways.  Celebrate NaNoWriMo participants, she says.  Encourage them.  But, she cautions us, don't blame the organizers if the participants don't want to edit their work.

And then there are the comments...there are a LOT of people who seem to have taken offense at Laura Miller's Salon post.  I am guessing these are people who have written a "lot of crap" and get upset upon hearing any suggestion that their work isn't publication-worthy.  The same sorts of people who give negative reviews on Amazon.com to books like Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.  They can't handle the truth.  They get indignant, or else they just ignore what they don't want to hear.

Anyone who calls Miller's post "offensive" or "disgusting" or "ludicrous" is way too sensitive to actually submit a novel for publication.  You will get rejections.  And criticisms, of both the constructive and non-constructive varieties.  And you had goddamn well better be able to handle them without sulking in a corner.  (And anyone who thinks "shovinistic" is the correct spelling of any word in the English language needs to stay the hell away from writing in the first place -- that's too far off to be a typo.)

If my post offended you, well, you need a thicker skin.  I'm cranky right now and it's my blog and I'll write whatever I goddamn well please.