This year I have come under the wave of a veritable tsunami of people asking me or saying within my earshot that they want to do NaNoWriMo but don't feel that they can/should/know how to.  As a consequence, I have been trying for an hour to write a post on why I think anyone who has even the tiniest desire to join National Novel Writing Month should do so.  I had no idea it would be this hard, but the root seems to lie in the delicate politics that is talking about writing.  So, while acknowledging that I will probably hit a few political bits anyway, let me attempt to convince you by bringing up the myths and truths about writing, and by voicing and then destroying your arguments NaNoWriMo.

Though, to get started, we'll begin with the one reason NOT to do NaNo.
 

I just don't want to.

If you don't WANT to do NaNo, don't.  I mean, I don't want to learn how to ride a motorcycle.  I don't want to bake a ten layer cake.  I don't want to ride RAGBRAI.  I want, in theory, to get into oil painting again, but I don't want to spend the money right now.  I want to go through the junk in my basement, but I want to do other things more.

If you just plain old do not want to write a story, either now, or ever, or not with this many people, or not in this format, or any other version of a nice firm NO THANK YOU, then move on, conscience clear.

If not, I have your number.

Bad reason not to join NaNo #1: I'm not any good.

This reason has a lot of subheadings.  It is sometimes known as "I'm not as good as So-and-So."  It has been known to fly under the disdainful flagship of, "Everybody thinks they can write a novel, and most people can't."  In general, it's trash talking, either of one's self specifically or of all potential attempters at once.  It is, utterly, garbage.

First of all, every writer, EVERY WRITER sits down to write and feels that they are garbage.  I do not believe anyone who says they don't.  Oh, there are good days.  There are always good days.  They are few and far between, and even when they come, there are days that come after where whatever you wrote on the good days now looks like garbage.  Everybody gets the contact highs.  Everybody gets the oh-my-god-I-suck days.  Everybody writes themselves into walls.  Everybody, most of the time, isn't any good.  It's just that some people keep writing anyway.

How do they do it?  Oh, that's different for everyone.  Some people try arrogance.  Some are bullheaded.  Some lie to themselves.  Some bribe themselves.  Some are just so desperate, so grimly aware that there is no way out that they just keep writing.  Some are under contract.  Some probably kill chickens in the basement.  Find your trick.  Find several tricks.  Whatever it takes.  

The really short way to circumvent "I'm not any good" is to remember that GOOD is completely subjective and wide, wide open to discrepancy.  The world has billions of people in it.  You would be amazed at how many of them would find you brilliant--and yet, you will never, never know if you don't write your story down so they can tell you how much they love it.

Bad reason #2: I don't know what to write.

If you didn't wander off on the first question, you already know this is a bullshit excuse.  If Story has bitten you, there is something rattling in your head.  Maybe there are too many ideas.  Maybe you just don't know how they're going to shape up.  Maybe you think yours isn't a good idea.  (See the above excuse and reread.)  

Writers--seriously fantastic writers, writers who have regularly made millions of people weep--have plucked ideas literally out of the air because they could not think of anything to write.  Ideas have walked up and smacked them in the face or crept up to them in the night.  The best advice I have for this is to be open, particularly to your subconscious.  Meditate.  Pray.  Get drunk or high or just take a really, really long walk.  Find a way to jack yourself into an altered state of consciousness and see what's there.

Or just start with "the," grab the nearest noun and verb and see where it takes you.

Bad reason #3: I don't have the time.

This one carries some weight---maybe time really is scarce for you.  But is this something you truly want?  Can you find a way to make even a little time for yourself, for 30 days?  Maybe you already know you can't make 50,000 words in 30 days.  But maybe you can make 25?  10?  Maybe you can just try and see what you can do, even in your busy schedule?  Or maybe your busy schedule is just the distraction to keep you from overthinking.  Or maybe your schedule is pressing on you so hard that this trip into fantasy is just what you need to jump start yourself.

Bad reason #4: I know I can't get published.

First of all, no you don't.  Horrible novels are published every day, and fantastic novels are ignored all the time.  Publishing is a weird, weird beast, and the only thing anybody knows about it is that nobody really understands it at all.

Second of all, it is absolutely fine to write just because you can.  How many people can say they FINISHED a novel?  How many people can say they wrote 50k words?  How many people even try?  If you really want to be published, at the very least you can post it to a blog.  That's at the VERY least.  Or you can just do it for yourself.  Or you can not think about that right now and just write.

Tell your story.

You have a story, and only you can tell it.  You have a point of view that no one else on the planet has.  The visions you see are visions no one else has.  Your visions are not wrong.  Your visions are not stupid.  Your point of view is something this world receives for a very, very short time, and if you do not share it, it is lost forever.

Yes, people can mock it if you share your story.  Yes, you might discover how hard it is.  That is a given, actually--but it's not the scariest thing about writing.  Writing is terrifying because of the things you learn about yourself: your limitations with the written word, yes, but worse are the things you learn about YOU.  Beliefs you hold.  Truths you know.  When you write, you discover the parts of yourself you keep in the dark, and before you realize what you are doing, you have them out there in the light--yes, for the rest of the world to see, but worse, you see them now.  You have to look.  You have to admit things.  Sometimes you have to admit that you are, in fact, not the nobody you were afraid you were.  

Story is a virus: if you have it, you have to exorcise it, or it will eat you from inside.  If you haven't already walked away from this post because you just don't care, because writing is just not the way you ever want to express yourself--if you're pressing your face against the glass because you are waiting for someone to show you the way in to the world of writing, get off the glass and get over to the door, because I am officially ushering you in.  If you want to write, WRITE.  Write now.  Write right now, and begin on November 1.  Write, and find out.  Jump into that black water and see how, where, and why you swim.  Maybe you show people, maybe you don't.  Maybe you finish, maybe you don't.  But once you write, you are a writer, forever.  Once you enter the world of creating, you will always know the way back in.  That alone may be enough.  Or you might write a story and share it with the world, and you might change it, forever.

I am going to be writing for NaNoWriMo.  This is me at NaNo.  If you want a writing buddy, add me.  If you want somebody to shout at in the trenches, let me know.  I'll be twittering, hanging out in the CherryForums, and if there's enough yen for it, I'll figure out some other place that we can hang out on the net.  Or just close the door and do it all on your own.  But if you have a story calling to you, write it.  

Writing is the single most beautiful, painful, wrenching, and transporting act you can ever do.  Writing is scaling Mount Everest.  Writing fiction is scaling Mount Everest naked.  Publishing, or attempting to publish fiction, is scaling Mount Everest naked with a live webcam feed.  

And you should do it anyway.