Sins of Ommission

Follower/Reader feedback session--particularly if you are currently novel-writing.

I confess to the following chronic problems that I discovered while speed-writing for NaNoWriMo:

I leave out the setting too much, especially during word-sprints.
Characters engage in routine actions, such as sipping coffee, to complement their conversations.
My understanding of characters is developing as I write, rather than the scenario where I already know who these people are.

Hazy settings, incomplete character sketches, uneven dialogue. I feel like Nietzsche's quote about poets is a good approximation of what I have (gleefully) done: "And which of us poets has not adulterated [rendered impure, bastardized] his wine? Some poisonous mishmash has gone on in our cellars."

Nietzsche continues:
"[Poets] are to me not pure enough. They cloud all their waters that these might appear deep."

I am learning how to make this work. It is exciting. I can see what will need to change and have some inkling of how my scenes and characters will need to be fleshed out before they actually have the depth I desire.

Nietzsche might approve of one thing, the fact that I am learning by trying: "trying and questioning has been all my progress [lit. 'going']:- and truly one must learn to answer to such questioning."

My trip to NaNo-land has been exploratory and the discoveries have been as giddy as the realizations about how much I must hone my craft have been sobering. I leave the honing for another time. Someone should start NaNoReMo (Revision Month). I wonder how many people could face their creation come January. For me, that has been the ultimate goal.

In November, I plan to have a blast making that poison mishmash in the basement of my mind. But eventually, I want to show others what I have done without being accused of simply muddying my waters to appear deep. NaNoReMo seems an important continuation of what I started in NaNoWriMo. Revising my creation says to me that I was not in it for the short sprint, just to say that I technically wrote a novel and tick it off a bucket list (though there is not a thing wrong with that).

Even if this novel is not salvageable, eventually, I hope to write one that is. When I do, I intend to salvage it, taking what I learned during the poisonous mishmash stage and applying it to creating a work of art. My little NaNo group keeps me going, and I hope that, when we arrive at 50,000, we'll coast for a month on our laurels, and then look at our writing with a critical eye. Whatever happens, I will come away from writing with a better appreciation of what goes into novel-writing.