I think sites like this one are great. If you discourage just one writer, then you will expedite their path toward what they were truly meant to do. The truth of the matter is, if you can be discouraged enough to the point where you don’t want to write…you are not a writer. It is as simple as that.

I have never been discouraged. I have never had someone say anything bad about my writing. Does this mean that my audience is too nice? It could be. I will just keep working away though.

Life boils down to what you think about first thing in the morning.

I think ‘I have to get writing’

If you think, ‘I want bacon’…maybe you should be a food critic or a cook.
If you think, ‘I have to pee’…maybe you should be a corrections officer.
If you think, ‘I wonder what my lead character would do if I…’ then you are a writer.

Write. Write. Write. Write…and if I tell you your work is crap, write or don’t write.

‘Do or do not, there is no try.’ ~Yoda

Go NaNoWriMo! I love meeting other writers…so fun to write together in silence and drink coffee…I’m being totally serious here…

I respect your opinion, and I can’t force my beliefs onto. But you seriously need some help.

Aside from that, however, it really depresses me to see people so anti-NaNo. I’ve done NaNo since I was seventeen, and have been an ML since 2005 (though my area is wee and tiny), and I really think NaNo is a good thing. I know it’s helped my writing, I’ve had fun with it, and I’ve made a lot of good friends and learnt a lot every year. There’s something to be said about writing just for the sake of writing, and worrying about plotholes and inconsistencies after you’ve got all your ideas down.

Of course, this approach won’t work for everyone – no one approach does – but I know that it has really helped me personally, and I’ve seen it get kids who were previously totally uninterested in reading and writing very interested. As far as I’m concerned, anything that will help increase children’s literacy is a good thing, whether it’s NaNo or books like Harry Potter which, while it’s a fun story that people can read and enjoy and relate to to a certain extent, isn’t exactly a prime example of great English literature (that’s a place I would reserve for something like Scott’s Ivanhoe, or J.R.R. Tolkien, or any one of a number of other authors).

So maybe you folks here think NaNo is crap and a worthless endeavour, but to many, many people there is something worthwhile to be found there. If I’m lucky, I will be able to spend the rest of my life having the kind of fun in November with NaNo that I have had since 2003, when I first joined up.

Don’t knock it till you try it, and if you try it and don’t like it, well, different strokes for different folks. Not everyone is you. Some people just want to write for fun, while some don’t.

Everybody’s got to start somewhere. Why, since I wrote that first novel quite a few years ago[oh lord was it terrible], there’s been nowhere to go but up. I’m only getting better every time I push myself to write without thinking – I learn what my style is, I relax, I exercise my brain in strange, wonderful little ways, I appreciate published books more and more, and I have a lot of fun. That’s the point, you know? Having fun. Not getting published, Lord knows I’ll probably never make it to that point – but everybody’s got to have a dream, right? Something they strive for.

Caitlin does not speak for all of us. I’m kind of embarrassed about that. She kind of proved a lot of your points by misspelling, not using proper grammar, and she was kind of a bitch about it… I mean, I was angry too, when I read some of the things on this website, but I chilled out before I replied… The way to have a discussion between two opposing sides isn’t through insults.

Anywho, my .o2 cents.

Just so you know…

What you say about NaNoWriMo might discourage some people who may have had potential. That’s fine. Those of us who truly have a passion and love to write will not be affected at all. Those of us that write because we need to, because we love to – Those of us who have the passion – Well, nothing will keep us from doing what we do. Especially not naysayers.

In the end, it boils down to this, er, slightly modified quote from Ratatouille:

“Anyone can /write/. But only the fearless can be great.”