Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

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Why I Don’t NaNo

14 Comments

ef·fi·cient/iˈfiSHənt/Adjective

1. (esp. of a system or machine) Achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
2. (of a person) Working in a well-organized and competent way
 
Recent stats:
  • five days to write acknowledgements (721 words)
  • four weeks to wade through one picture book stanza (14 words out of 517)
  •  three and a half years to write, rewrite, and edit one verse novel (15,000 words)
Writing is not efficient for me. What about you?

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Filed Under: the writing life

Comments

  1. Beth Kephart says

    November 11, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    Love these stats and would love to use this as a meme, but won’t.

    Will simply say:

    Small Damages, due out next summer from Philomel: 10 years. 85 drafts.

    Novel in progress? Still very much in progress.

    Right there with you, Caroline Starr Rose.

    Reply
  2. Caroline Starr Rose says

    November 11, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    Beth, thank you. So glad there are others who must take their time. Happy to keep company with you!

    Reply
  3. Jill says

    November 11, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    Thank God I’m not the only slow as molasses writer out there.

    Reply
  4. Caroline Starr Rose says

    November 11, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    Jill, welcome to our little group! 😉

    Reply
  5. Karen Strong says

    November 11, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    Maybe I’m just lazy? LOL. But I can totally understand. I’ve tried NaNo several times — never could do it.

    Reply
  6. Kimberley Griffiths Little says

    November 11, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    The only time I did a NaNoWriMo was in August last year out of desperation . . . 🙂

    I should come up with a new acronym, huh? Aug something with Angst thrown in for good measure.

    Reply
  7. Keisha Martin says

    November 12, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    This is the second year I tried NaNO and I achieved the epic 50,000 however I am expecting half of what I wrote may not make any sense LOL I was just writing like I was falling off a ledge, then flying nowhere.

    Wow great stats, I adore you Caroline one: I think you have a super author name that flows, and you have inspired me to firstly read verse novels,I read CRANK recently and I am in love so I tried writing a novel in verse I am five pages in like any other type of writing, its not the easiest thing but I think the first step is to enjoy it, I am so happy and wish you abundance of sucess when May B hits the shelves very soon.

    Reply
  8. Joanne Fritz says

    November 12, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    Thank you, Caroline! NaNo’s not for me either. It only took me two and a half years to write the rough draft of my first novel…

    Reply
  9. Caroline Starr Rose says

    November 12, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    Karen! You’re no longer a butterfly! That’s a lovely new profile picture. I tried NaNo a few years ago and only made it a week.

    Kim, you’re ability to buckle down amazes me. Like I said at the Schmooze last week, sometimes a deadline is the best motivator/muse around.

    Keisha, thank you so much for the support and kind words these last few years. So glad you’ve given verse novels a shot. I can understand why the format might not appeal to everyone, but if readers who feel this can just look beyond the structure, there are great stories inside. And I secretly love my name. 🙂

    Joanne, I understand completely.

    Reply
  10. Amy L. Sonnichsen says

    November 13, 2011 at 9:19 pm

    Yes, that’s a good reason not to NaNo! 🙂

    This is my first year trying it, and I think the pace is perfect for me. It actually holds me back, if you can believe it. Usually when I’m in a first draft it’s such a whirlwind I’m writing every opportunity I get. With NaNo I can give myself permission to be done because I see that I’ve already reached the word count goal for the day. It’s helped me to pace myself instead of writing so intensely I get burned out.

    But yes, we’re all different, which is a good thing! 🙂

    Amy

    Reply
  11. Angela Ackerman says

    November 14, 2011 at 3:28 am

    Haha, these stats sounds just like me!

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

    Reply
  12. Liesl Shurtliff says

    November 15, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    I’m with you! I did Nano once, and I actually think it was a good exercise at the time, but I don’t think I produced anything worth going back to.

    Reply
  13. Karen Akins says

    November 16, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    I’m with you. Efficiency is not my, umm, forte. But I’m actually doing NaNo this year to try to give me a little kick in the pants. It’s not pretty, and I’m not going to win, but my fingers have hit the keyboard more often than usual.

    Reply
  14. Caroline Starr Rose says

    November 16, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    Karen, great, realistic attitude. I like the way you think.

    Reply

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