4 Reasons NaNoWriMo Is Good For You
1) NaNoWriMo
… gives us the kick in the britches we badly need to get started. Or to put it more profoundly, Newton’s first Law of Motion, also known as the Law of Inertia, means that there is a natural tendency of objects to keep on doing what they’re doing, so sometimes we need a little external motivation. If you’ve never quite managed to get that nagging novel underway, now’s your chance to feel the heat and get your musings down on the page. You’ll soon find out that perspiration is what fuels your tank, not inspiration. So get in the saddle and start drafting!
2) NaNoWriMo
… gets us in the habit of taking action on that blank page and writing under the gun. Similar to the Pomodoro technique, where you set a timer and work in bursts of focus and energy toward a larger goal, thirty days of committing to bite-sized writing blocks will result in reaching the once grandiose goal of 50,000 words.
3) NaNoWriMo
… simulates a total immersion language learning experience where you operate exclusively in the target language. You live and breathe the setting, dialog, and characters in your world, and this catapults the writing process ahead. NaNoWriMo groups and meetups can even make the experience similar to living with a host family where you gain life-changing insights into the mentality of another culture. People rarely become fluent in a language without immersing themselves in it for extensive periods of time. The same is true of writing. Total immersion encourages us to pen our story without overthinking the grammar, and to open up the floodgates and let the prose that’s been simmering in the recesses of our brains finally flow.
4) NaNoWriMo
… helps us harness the power of constraints that has been proven to result in increased creativity. When the precious resource of time is restricted, our plots thicken, our characters become more ingenious, and our dialog more nimble. It’s similar to improv theater where performers accept the contributions introduced on stage and quickly work within the parameters they are given to dream up characters and narratives. Without the pressure of a 50,000 word month looming over us, paralysis of choice, and decision fatigue, often defeat our creative efforts before we begin. Dive in and you may be surprised what you conjure up!