Side note about the technical questions concerning NaNo:
Why 50k?: Two reasons. First,
Firebrand's right. Second, because fifty thousand words is, according to some people, the minimum number of words needed to actually have a novel. Anything less becomes a
novella.
Why November?: Believe it or not, this is actually answered by
their Wikipedia page. Originally, it was done in July (which is one of the two times of the year Camp NaNoWriMo takes place these days, for those of you looking for something to take advantage of the summer break), but it was moved to November because that's when the worst weather in the San Francisco area takes place. Remember—this started out as a
local event.
That all said, Firebrand's pretty much on the money about everything else. But also, a couple more points to emphasize:
1. Why do we do NaNo instead of a New Year's resolution? Because the beauty of NaNo is that it's a competition within a short period of time. Some people have trouble keeping New Year's resolutions
because it takes place across a year, so they're more likely to procrastinate or forget about it. If they have a set goal within a short time frame, that helps them focus and realize that they need to pace themselves and keep at it. The competition, meanwhile, isn't really a
bad thing for them. By comparing their progress with other people, that keeps the reminder that they have to sit down and keep working fresh in their minds.
2. If someone is actually pressured into taking on NaNo by their friends, then ... I'd hate to say it, but that's more of an issue with the person in question, not with NaNo. Like people have been saying, no one is
forcing you to participate. It's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not NaNo is a good idea. Blaming NaNo for making someone who caved to peer pressure feel terrible for not attaining a goal is like blaming a night club for letting someone with finals the next morning go out clubbing with their friends, y'know? If you have finals the next morning (still speaking in analogies here), it's up to you to say, "Sorry, I really can't do this." And if you suffer from social anxiety, hey, same thing. You really
can say no if you don't want to do it, and if you don't say no ... then that's not really NaNo's problem.
Well, that and if they're the kinds of people who can hammer out 2k in an hour (i.e., the variety of people who work well under the pressures of NaNo and for whom NaNo
works) and if they're actually decent friends, then they really should be able to socialize with you/other people just fine. I mean, NaNo doesn't really consume people's entire beings, regardless of what the tagline says. Like with all interests, people exist outside of it, y'know? So to say that they'll alienate you/other people by doing NaNo would be a lot like talking about someone for whom fandom consumes their entire being to the point where they can
only talk about that fandom at any given time. And sure, there are people like that, but by and large, most people in fandoms—and, likewise, NaNo—know to talk about other things when interacting with people who are not in the fandom/participating.
As for the guy just looking for a writing challenge in order to learn and improve without really knowing what it's about, NaNo's pretty open about what it is, and the writers who talk about NaNo do their best to explain what you have to do in order to reach 50k. No one ever said it was for beginning writers. However, most people
do learn about NaNo through writing communities, so if they figured out that NaNo isn't for them ... then they still have the writing community to help them learn and grow. Like Firebrand said, no one's
trying to make NaNo out to be something you do to figure out whether or not you're a capable author. So it's generally assumed that you have the ability to communicate with people in the writing community where you found out about NaNo in order to get advice on general writing
and on whether or not NaNo is right for you.
Lastly, lemme just say this:
Avenging Angel said:
I can agree that for some people, NaNo is right for them and it really helps push them, but can't we all agree that it isn't right for everyone?
That's ... pretty much what everyone's been saying from the get-go. See, the main thing that's tripping people up about your posts is you keep insisting that NaNo is a
bad thing. You're not really completing the train of thought by tagging on "for some people" to that sentence. You're saying competition is bad, people will be subjected to peer pressure, and if you write 50k in a month, you're not going to come out with anything full of passion. Maybe you
meant that this is true for
some people, but the problem with saying that NaNo's downsides are this, this, and this is that NaNo's downsides aren't actually downsides for
everyone.
That and, well, you're dispensing personal opinion as advice. You can't really say "don't try NaNo" just because it didn't work out for you. After all, what if someone really thinks it would be fun, but you're telling them that it will never result in a decent work and that they'll be crushed and alienated and whatnot? A better way to phrase that would be, "Assess your writing skills. Think about how much you write in a day. Ask around to see how much 50k actually is and how much time people take to write the minimum 1667 words a day and then figure out whether or not that would be stressful for you. Look at your schedule and see if you have free time. If NaNo still sounds like a fun time even after you've done enough research into the event, then do the event and see what happens. If it sounds like a bit much after you've really thought about it, then don't do it. What happens if you thought you can do it at first but then crash and burn partway through? Then you know not to do it again, or, for the masochists among us, you decide to practice and plan ahead for next year." Just don't tell someone not to do something unless it's quite obviously a bad idea for
everyone, y'know?
Also, while I'm here, I'd like to second this:
Firebrand said:
There are undoubtedly writing communities online that have the philosophy that if you don't do NaNo, you can't sit at the cool kids table, but Serebii is most certainly not one of those places, nor have I ever had the misfortune to encounter one.
I haven't encountered a writing community that alienates people for not doing NaNo either. Hell, even
NaNo's forums[/url] are not the kind of community that does that. (I mean, sure, obviously, everyone's going to be talking about NaNo throughout November there, but you can actually go there for writing tips and to hang out with other writers, even if you're not doing NaNo or a proper NaNo run. They're pretty chill like that.)
Anyway, I'd also like to put in that I was serious about the bit how you should organize another event that might be more friendly to the folks who aren't speed writers if you'd really like to give people a sane alternative to NaNo. Because eff yeah, more writing events. Just sayin'.