I have to be honest, I was always on the fence with National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. Having worked as an editor and writer before the event became mainstream, I thought it odd that people needed one dedicated month to write a book. I thought, you either want to write a novel or you don’t. Why do you need an artificial deadline of 30 days? Then a writer friend did it and it sounded intriguing. It’s a way to avoid procrastination. Get what you’ve been thinking about done. Join a team, just do it, like a sporting event. You put yourself through a workout of creating a 50,000-word story to see if you can. So during 2014, I dove in.

I finished that book or “won” as the NaNoWriMo community puts it. A couple of years later, I did it again and “won.” Since then, I’ve edited both of these novels and they are finished. One even placed in a first novel prize contest. But I have to confess, both times the experience left me cold, in fact, a little depressed. While I made brief writerly friends during the process and the community was incredibly supportive, I ended up feeling empty. Here’s what I learned about why the event isn’t for me.

1. You Write Fast and Carelessly

I’m a writer. I love language. I love words. I love to revel in words, whether when reading them or writing them. I love living inside what they help me imagine. But because I had the pressure of writing a novel in 30 days, I often wrote weak sentences and lousy logical situations I wasn’t proud of. That didn’t propel me to go on. In fact, it made me cringe the entire time. I wasn’t able to revel in the imagination of words for a long enough, leisurely time. I felt bad about myself.

2. Afterward, I Had to Edit More Than I Otherwise Would Have

Because I wrote as fast as lightning, I wrote more than what Anne Lamott calls that “shitty first draft,” I wrote a “garbage draft.” I have since written two novellas and while those drafts took two or three months to write, they were cleaner and more finished. They had more care and thought in them earlier on. Because of that, they required fewer passes and less cutting and rewriting.

3. I Wasn’t Driven by Inspiration

During NaNoWriMo, I was driven by a deadline and though that may have led to some condensed creativity, it didn’t lead to those unique ideas, poetic turns of phrases, clever plot twists, snappy dialogue, and all else that brings layered texture to a great story. The language was mostly mechanical and the events were on the page. The characters weren’t especially alive or multidimensional, the setting wasn’t rich with meaning, the plot not fully fleshed out. Had I more time to think about it all, I would have written with more focused intention and joy.

4. Ideas Have No Time to Ferment

One thing I’ve learned about writing is beautiful writing takes time. We edit and create while driving in a car or showering or weeding the yard just as much as when the laptop’s open, but because you’re throwing words on paper during NaNoWriMo, there’s no in-between time to literally daydream about the story. You have way fewer, if any, of those “a-ha” moments where you realize how one action point fits into the whole plot or why a character should say something or even what the final sentence of the book should be.

5. It Encourages the Myth that “Everyone Has One Good Novel in Them”

Anyone who’s experienced at writing knows it’s incredibly difficult. It takes time to outline a great story and write it, which, of course, is usually more than 50,000 words. It takes long blocks of deep quiet concentration. It takes tenacity to revise over and over and over again, even when you’re sick of the story. It takes stamina to send your work out to the world and bounce back from constant rejection. For probably every 10 submissions I send out, I get one accepted. Writing is agonizing, solitary, psychologically-challenging work.

But NaNoWriMo’s main message makes it sound easy. Organizers say “the world needs your story” so why not take this opportunity to start sharing it with the world? Well, yes, but there’s a mountain of revision that comes after that month of the first draft, which is not often talked about. Agents have said they get flooded in December and January with half-baked NaNoWriMo novels that aren’t anywhere close to being ready. There’s this idea that once you finish the draft, the story will magically come together and people will magically want it. Experienced writers know this is not the case.

If You Want to Do It, Go for It, But Don’t Worry if You Don’t

I hate to sound like such a scrooge, but these are my true feelings. NaNoWriMo has become the “participation award” of the modern literary era. And some folks I know simply write the novels for that participation, for the fun, in which case, the event has fulfilled its purpose. Also, some novels have been published by traditional means to acclaim, which also means success. I just hope people go into the challenge with realistic expectations.

Moreso though, I hope people who feel guilty about not doing it know that you don’t have to join an entire country during one particular month of the year (which very inconveniently includes Thanksgiving and its associated travel/rest days by the way) to write a novel. It you have a story to write, know that you can write it any time of the year, at any writing rate, whenever you want. If it matters, you will anyway. And if it’s not the most pressing thing in your life, well, that’s okay too.