It's nearly that time again....

I have run into a distressing number of people lately who are basically telling writers 'my way or not at all.' They say this even when 'their way' has nothing to do with other person's needs or wishes. The problem is that these people tend to 'yell' louder than others, and draw more attention, and people listen to them because they either offer an easy answer or because they're so pretentious people who don't know any better think they must really know something.

The real problem, I think, is that these loud people are purposefully blind to others. They want the world to run in their way, and to their needs, and the best way to do that is to convince everyone else that theirs is the only answers. They're generally pretty impolite to people who don't agree with them, too. Which, okay, doesn't always bring out the best in me, either. I know it, and sometimes I don't care.

NaNo is coming. Yes, this is related to the stuff above. The moment NaNo starts being mentioned in some places, it's bound to draw all the fury of the 'I am an ARTIST not a HACK' over-the-top reactions from people who know this isn't for them, and therefore it can't be good (or fun, for that matter) for anyone else.

NaNo is fun, it's exciting, it's a good way for some people to get going on their writing, and it has absolutely no affect on anyone who does not take part. It's not the death of literature. Most of the people who join in won't finish, and those who do will mostly share their work with their friends -- and those who hate NaNo will never even see it. A few will go on to rewrite and work on their novels and hone them into something far better than the quick, first draft they've written.

But that part doesn't matter. People are not required to rework their stories. If thousands of people spend their November writing just for the joy of it, it will no more affect your life than it would if they all took up skydiving.

What others write cannot affect what you write. Only you can do that, and all the pretentious hand-wringing and cries of dismay that the NaNo people dare to call themselves authors, and dare to claim to have written anything is the only affect it really has on them. They're doing it to themselves because it is oh-so-elitist to show how they would never stoop to something so plebian.

My usual thought is 'So go write and shut up. Prove how superior you are... and we'll just go on having fun.'

We have about two months until NaNo, and some of us are looking forward to the sheer fun of it. Time to start checking the subconscious for characters, dusting off half-formed ideas, and begin lining it all up!