It was a dark and stormy night





O, woe is me! At this very moment I am missing another opportunity to win fame and fortune as a writer.

Only a couple of days after learning too late about the National Day of Writing, I have heard about another orgy for wordmongers. This one is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and it has already started.

First, I failed to crank out a haiku or an anecdote in time for the National Day of Writing, Now, NaNoWriNo is providing an opportunity for me to create an original novel of 50,000 words (or more) in the month of November, and here it is the third day already without the first word written.

Today, I would need to write about 5,000 words just to get on schedule. Sad to say, though,I may be a speed reader, but I am not a speed writer.

In my word factory, a full-length nonfiction book might take seven years from the start of research to final proofreading, and most of my newspaper columns require the better part of a day for writing only about 600-700 words. For a novel, I would also need extra time to come up with a story, plotline, and character development, and so far I have none.

So, the notion of creating an entire novel in November is impossible. And if I took a day off for Thanksgiving, the result of banging out 1,666 words a day would be a turkey.

I rationalize by remembering that Snoopy, that smartest and most famous of comic-strip beagles, has been typing the same opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night,” for years without making any further progress.

In a world of foreclosures, a Balloon Boy, fathers assaulting Little League umpires, and mothers manipulating their tiny beauty queens, story material certainly should be easy to find. With name changes here and there, I could write a novel about Bernie and Ruth Madoff worthy of Scott Fitzgerald, or a tale of political intrigue about elections in the Middle East, a pirate adventure in the Indian Ocean, and crime stories about several local embezzlers.

For those who wish to participate, a web site for NaNoWriMo helps with a lengthy list of local contacts from all over the world, including one in Alamosa. And after the novel-writing month, if the speed demons still have time on their hands, additional opportunities include writing a 100-page play in April, a 5,000-line epic poem in May, or making a film in 48 hours.

After hearing about these marathons, however, I had questions about quantity versus quality. For instance, when do these frantic novelists, playwrights, poets, and filmmakers have time for revisions?

I am one of those old fogies who still remember the dictum of experts who said that writing is a craft and that a craftsman must revise and rewrite, and then revise and rewrite some more. In that view, although whacking out a novel in one big swoop might be fun, a novel would require a lot of time and effort after the first rough draft, if it were to be a meaningful or enjoyable story that anyone would want to read.

Tots often are initiated as storytellers by being required to stand up and tell their class what they did during their summer vacation, without a chance for revision. Only a few of these little narrators tell interesting stories, mostly because they have had good experiences, while the rest shuffle their feet and hurry to sit down as quickly as possible.

Then the teacher must try to drill something into young heads before the dreaded CSAPs roll around. Unfortunately many students are still shuffling their feet and hurrying to get out of English class as quickly as possible when high school graduation arrives.

A handful may have discovered the joys of creative writing, though, and only the meanest teacher would insist on their revisions and rewriting. After all, creativity is next to godliness.

The budding writers receive an “A” from their delighted teachers and encouragement from fawning families and friends, followed by a frenzy of odes about nature. Any advice about the slow, painstaking labor of craftsmanship is soon forgotten.

As for my own great novel, I will start mine just as soon as Snoopy finally gets to work and completes his.