Why NanoWriMo is Like a One Night Stand
It's October. Already, you eyed each other up across the dance floor before ever committing a step towards one another. At a distance, it all seems so attractive and shiny, enticing — dangerous even. But with only a few weeks to go before mounting the starting blocks, you're now planning what you’ll say, perfecting that very first line, knowing it has to make the right impression to set you off on the right foot.
For the next few weeks you'll flirt shamelessly, giggle and play coy, knowing you’re onto a good thing; you can feel it in your bone-- er. There’s a party about to go off at your house with a guest list of only two.
By 1st November coffee is at your place and you’re ready to shut the door and just get on with it. No need for the safety of disco lights and alcohol by this stage — you’re in!
Giving over to first lust, you rip each other’s clothes off, teeth gnashing and clashing, tongues writhing, mouths drooling, you dive in as quickly as possible, teasing your words as well as your action scenes until you get the right response and your characters quiver beneath your touch.
Call yourself up an agent - this baby's gonna shoot through the roof!
But as heart-stopping as finding your date wears a false bottom under her skirt, or that he was wearing patent leather loafers WITH NO SOCKS, halfway through Nano you wonder: what the fuck am I doing?
You realise you should have taken it slower, built it up more, made more of a connection. You know this is going to be a flimsy, quenchless coupling by the end of it. That inner editor is screaming blind fury for you to go back, make amends, just take the telephone number instead of the taxi together! Give Nano a call when you’re actually ready.
But you're much too far along to embarrass yourself by backing out now. You have to see it through to the end, power on through, even if that means you don't get the satisfaction you'd hoped for. It's highly likely you’ll wake up next to Mr Bean in the messy aftermath. And there’s no gathering up your knickers from the nightshade and sneaking away quietly either, pretending it never happened. You already told your mates, the whole family know you're doing this, your colleagues — your teacher!! You may even have reigned in some sponsorship for good measure.
Yep, you’re well and truly fucked.
Aren't you?
Yeah, it was messy, frantic, lacking in finesse. Defiitely NOT earth moving, and almost certainly left you feeling sullied and cheap. But chill. Unlike the real thing, you can go back and clean it up, analyse the really bad bits and - yes! - do them all over again until you look like a hot-damn-jiggety-lurve-guru.
Thankfully, the rewrite is a different beast altogether. More like a long term lover, you might say.
It needs ground work, first and foremost, which, if you finish Nano you’ll have. Revision is well-paced with plenty of ups and downs. There’s lots of room to manoeuvre and change position if things begin to monotone, but if it’s not working there’s also time to lay back and do the crossword! When you do finally find a good rhythm the intensity builds, connections are fused, gasps of surprise and joy spill all over the page sheets, and your body is locked in for the ride to reach a spectacular, soul wrenching climax!
You lay back with sated glee, polish up those beer goggles with some I-knew-those-all-nighters-would-pay-off blasé, ready to peer across that dance floor and see what’s winking at you this time.
But the good stuff only comes from prior experience. So keep on going to the end. Those page sheets won’t dirty themselves!
