Quality vs. Speed?

So, this is my second NaNo, but my first being a rebel (writing memoir).

Is anyone else finding that it's slow moving?

I guess a way to explain it is this: when I wrote my novel in 2009, it went so fast! I wrote 5K in the first day and honestly wrote my novel in about 5-6 days (spread out). Of course, I found it to be kind of crappy after a while and I never went back to it.

This time, I do find my editing voice kicking in, but I am more attached to this story in the sense of -- I don't want to trash it when it's over. I am FINALLY writing it for real and I don't want to write a bunch of crap to get to 50,000, realize I need to trash all of it, and then start over. I really want to have a WORKING first draft. And that's keeping me away from the word wars and sprints, which I enjoyed so much my first year.

Anyone else relate?

I'm editing my fiction manuscript as I work on it. I'm amenable to writing crap during experimental pantsing where the goal is to get over initial hesitance and have fun making an idea farm for future inspiration. This time around, I did too much research and preplanning to blow my initial surge of adrenalin on an underwhelming first draft. I need to believe in my work to have the discipline to carry it through to the finish, and I'll lose that sense if I dislike what I'm doing.

Furthermore, the editing meaningfully bolsters my word count. I'll sketch out a scene dump, then go back and rearrange and flesh it out into a more satisfying product. Win-win!

I still do sprints with my local writing group, but I see them as a way to balance socialization with focus.

I'm moving slowly so far. I'm expanding and finishing my Camp NaNo novel and I don't want to pad it purely for word count's sake. I'm trying to add detail and description (that I can cut later if I need to) but I'm also trying to develop some of the characters and maybe add a storyline or two, some scenes to flesh the whole thing out. Not sure how it's all going to work but I'm going to give it a go. I am a rebel after all. :)

Nonfiction writer, I'm moving fairly quickly but leaving notes to myself to cite this and verify that as I go. I'm also indulging myself by being as catty as I please about my subject's girlfriends :) even though I know that I'll have to take that stuff out or tone it down for publication. I think the reason I'm like this is because I know for a fact that I will not have a complete "story" told when I'm done with NaNo: we're talking one-third or one-halt of a book covering this person's entire life, tops.

SparkofLove - I'm so with you.

The last two years with fiction, no worries, I just kept writing, forgetting about the sentence I just wrote. I wasn't invested in it. I didn't care if it was crap.

This year (writing memoir like you are) this is not the case. I'm going back and editing (not much) but especially since the beginning is very very hazy it is taking much more time. And as I write some things I remember others that I want to add so then I stop my flow...

I'm with you. We can do it though and it will be good stuff in the end.

I always go for quality. Given that my ultimate aim is publication and I know I can finish outside of NaNo, I use NaNo for a 50K word blitz of a draft--but it has to be a decent draft. I tend not to edit, but I do write for quality, which does slow me down.

Matt Lang

I'm finding that the advice on just going through without editing doesn't work for me.

When I have an idea I need to get it down fairly accurately. It might be a good idea, and if it doesn't make sense when I come back to look at it again in a few months, I will probably have to delete it. Better to capture things so that they'll make sense in future. That probably doesn't matter so much with a character.

However, I'm also finding that I want to edit my grammar, spelling etc, and for this I have no excuse other than that I find it easier to maintain flow if the foregoing bit is more or less acceptably written. I often scan back over my last few lines to remind myself where I'm going with my argument. If I stumble over bad grammar or spelling, it interferes with my pace and concentration. I could try to fix my attitude to grammar and spelling - but it seems more pragmatic to just allow myself a small amount of editting.

So I edit as I go - but only enough to maintain sense in the text and flow in the author's brain.

I'm finding it exceptionally hard with my blog contentpalooza. Blog posts are supposed to be concise and to the point, short and easy to read. Padding them with extra words will guarantee they will never be read again. Not what I want to propel my blog into the next bracket in my niche. I'm going slower and more methodical. Since I write for my job (the blog) anyway I can spend my entire day on content that isn't going out directly after I'm done writing it.

I edit as I go but rarely do I go back more than once before the blog post goes out anyhow so I'm not concerned. I think it has to be harder to not be creative since nonfiction requires you to be factual. You can't bloat it like you can a story.

I'm a very harsh critic of my own writing, so every other time I've written, I've gotten so bogged down in trying to get things perfect or close to perfect that I could never let anything go. This last book I've written, I've just written like crazy and just gotten something on the page. I finished the rough draft, and had the time to fall in love with my world and characters. Now I'm doing the rewrite and some of it is excruciatingly bad but far less than I had feared. So for me, rough draft = quantity, rewrite = quality. It works for me, and I think you need to just find the combination that works for you.

I did my first NaNoWriMo two years ago, and won- but you're right, it was horrible and completely un-editable. But it taught me what I needed to do this year, and that was prepare before NaNo and outline. I'd forgotten how hectic NaNo can be, and I didn't outline as much as I should have, but there is definitely more structure.

I'm a rebel this year in kind of two different aspects- 1) I had a lot of this novel already written out, especially since I like to include dialogue within my outlines, and 2) It's the second in a series, when I haven't even finished the first. I did that purposely, using the second novel to explore the complexity of plotting so that when I go back to my first novel I will actually know how to revise it. The second novel is shaping up to be *almost* as bad as the first, but I am definitely learning what I needed to learn to revise the first novel. I feel like I know the FMC in that novel really, really well now, and I also know really important things about my characters that I can foreshadow in the first book. Plus I figured out a few major plot holes (one of which I still have to resolve, and it's *big*). So I think it's all about planning as much as you can before NaNo, knowing your characters and plot and putting them through scrutiny in the forums, writing without reserve during NaNo (and staying away from the forums until your daily word count is done), and finally, not judging what comes out of NaNo too harshly and setting it aside for awhile so it can mature, and working on something different if needs be. :)

Completely. I didn't mind word wars at various write-ins I attended, but when it came time to edit my huge tome from hell that I finished in June 2009, the complete garbage I wrote during said wars was obvious. It took me far longer to turn that stuff coherent than to just write it correctly at a normal pace the first time. Maybe I'm missing "fun" by opting out this year, but I'm probably saving myself a lot of pain. Then again, I've never been fast enough at word wars for them to be as fun as most people find them.

if I edit everything as I go, then nothing would get written.

I'm a handwriter for my first draft, so I follow a rule: If I didn't catch it before I start the next paragraph/5-10 lines of dialogue, it stays until the end." Seriously, I am not erasing the fact that Gina had the baby 8 weeks before she even met the father. That's what highlighters are for.

I don't edit everything as I go along, but I am not so much about speed. I really care about the quality of what I write. It helps me if I plan out my novel before November. This way I always know what I am going to write and during Word wars I always know what I am going to write.

I find planning helps, and not so much caring about the speed. I've only done Nano once (this is my first time) I did aim for the 50k but I was prepared to get into December to reach that aim.

I edit grammar and punctuation as I go along, but now I need to go through it with a close eye...