My novel sucks – a pep talk
My Facebook memories from the end of October to the first day of November reminded me of how much of my time back then was spent preparing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), both as a participant and as one of the Municipal Liaisons (ML) for the Philippines. I will do a little identity reveal here—even if it’s not really a secret —but I was one of the MLs for the Asia: Philippines region from 2007 to 2012. It was one of my first experiences organizing events and activities for creatives.
I have very fond memories of NaNoWriMo, from the moment I tried it out in 2004 when I attempted to expand a short story I wrote about a crush (haha) into a full novel. I lost the first year, but I eventually finished the story (and it will never see the light of day, haha), then joined again in 2005, where I finally got my winner badge. Fall Like Rain and Keep the Faith were originally NaNoWriMo projects in 2006 and 2009, respectively, and some of my future projects were also former NaNoWriMo ideas, so a lot of my author career started with this, deciding to try to write a 50,000-word novel and realizing that it was fun.
Like many writers around the world who had been part of NaNoWriMo, learning about its demise this year was heartbreaking, especially given how much it had impacted my creative life. I made a lot of good friends in community that I am still lucky to know until now, from the writers whom I spent hours in chatrooms in for our virtual write-ins (the Chuck Norris jokes that never ends haha) to the ones who showed up at every face-to-face event (the surprise plot devices haha), to the authors I had reached out to to ask for pep talks to send during the month of November. Good times!
I dug through my inbox for the pep talks that filled it every November, and in the process, found one of the pieces I wrote in 2010, sent in the third week of November, when most participants realize that 50,000 words is actually quite a lot. That year, I was writing a retelling of a well-known Filipino folklore that I was very excited about, but I wasn’t much of a fantasy writer (or reader) back then (until now, really), so I was really struggling more than usual. This pep talk got a handful more replies than normal, telling me that there were more of us in the same boat.
Not gonna lie, though, the thoughts I wrote here still resonate, because impostor syndrome is loud sometimes. But it’s nice to stumble upon this again and be reminded that, while some things haven’t changed, there’s been a lot of growth. And growth is always good.
Here’s the pep talk, edited lightly for clarity. 🙂
Hello dearest Filipino novelists!
I knew as a kid that I wanted to be a writer, ever since I “met” Elizabeth Wakefield in Sweet Valley Kids. She was my first writing inspiration, and I am pretty sure she was the one that made me start writing stories even if I never read any of her stuff. I was all set to take up Journalism in college, but I got sidetracked when I was introduced to the wonderful world of HTML and web, so I took the geeky path and graduated college with a degree in Computer Science.
I did not abandon writing in college, though. I joined our school’s literary folio, but quit two terms later because I couldn’t do the residency and I always felt out of place among them. I wrote a few short stories, but I took my own sweet time writing them, except of course when they were semi-autobiographical — with that, it was almost like word vomit. For other attempts at literary work, I totally sucked.
Earlier today, I managed to reach 20k words in my novel. I forced myself to write, write, write and close other things that would make me slack off until I reach that magic land of 20,000 words before Monday came. Then I made a mistake at taking a break and reading some excerpts of the other Wrimos here posted on their profiles. Then I came to a sad realization.
My story sucks.
This entire attempt at writing a retelling of a fantasy story sucks. Really and truly sucks.
And because I chose to stick to the story, that I chose to stick to writing this, it must follow that I also suck.
Here’s a confession: all these years I have been a Municipal Liaison for the region, I have always felt that I was one of the worst writers in the region. No joke. I like writing, yes, but I feel that I lack the formal training, the vocabulary and sometimes even the imagination to be a real writer. Sometimes, during chats and write-ins, I feel lost about the things people talk about. I have to double check the dictionary to understand some words that I feel I should have known before given my reading habits but it never stuck. Sometimes I feel like my novels can never compare to what you guys write. I feel like I’m the most boring person in the world, using the same words over and over again with long sentences and sometimes a bad grasp at grammar. Sometimes, I feel like my words do not carry enough weight, that it’s not exciting and no one will ever look at whatever I wrote, except for friends who get bored and ask me for things to read that are my own.
Yeah, I suck.
You would think that with these insecurities, I would have stopped attempting to write a novel years ago. I would have stepped down from being an ML and just use my time to focus on other things like work, reading and other things that I would not suck on. But here I am, on my seventh year of NaNoWriMo, seeing little improvement in what I write and how I write it. I must be crazy, or at least, very masochistic.
That, my friends, is the beauty of National Novel Writing Month: we all have permission to suck.
At work, my boss often ask me to proofread things for him, and they often ask me to write copies for some of the marketing materials we make. I’m known for being the writer who can give a human side to anything very technical, and I have even written a photo write up that made the photo win a prize. They think I am a good writer. When I see my novel, however, I don’t see it.
But you know what? That’s okay. Because that’s what this entire month is really all about. NaNoWriMo is about unleashing that story that has been bottled up inside of you for the longest time. It’s about wrestling with a blank piece of paper, writing even if you have no idea where to start or what happens next. It’s about locking up that internal editor that tells you to go back and edit, to delete things because that does not make sense. It’s about bugging your characters, begging them even, to act accordingly and still giving in when they start acting another way. NaNoWriMo is about complaining and wailing with other fellow Wrimos about how hard it is to write, and how difficult it is to reach a word count that seems impossible to reach especially if you have been slacking off.
It’s about making mistakes (huge ones, even), but still writing anyway.
It’s about writing and sucking, but still writing anyway.
It’s about writing even when you don’t want to, because you know somewhere, somehow, your story will make sense and no matter how much you suck at writing or no matter how much your story sucks, there is something beautiful hidden underneath it all.
But first, you have to write it down. No matter how sucky it all is.
I’m pretty sure my novel sucks and it will probably never see the light of day after November, but I will keep writing anyway. I will keep writing despite the number of distractions that come my way and I will keep writing even if everything inside of me is screaming, “ABANDON IT! IT’S NOT WORTH IT!!!!”
You want to know why?Because the last time I tried to read the six NaNoWriMo novels I have hidden in my hard drive, I realize one thing about them all:
They didn’t suck as much as I thought they did. 🙂
If you are working on any project this month, whether it’s for a novel writing challenge for November or something else, know that I am cheering for you! Here’s to writing through the suckiness. 🙂