Writing Blog

20231020 Question

October 20, 2023, 7:30am

The story is chugging along. Why these ideas hit me like this, I have no idea, but it does put my NaNoWriMo idea on the backburner, which is a good thing.

The life stuff sucks. I feel like I'm 17 dealing with the woman I like; I feel like I'm useless dealing with keeping my roof over my head.

So...

On our local NaNo Discord server, a person has come along. They claim they used to write in high school, mainly poetry, some ten years ago, but haven't written anything since then. Judging by their Discord posts, they need a refresher course on punctuation. Oh, and they don't read a lot, maybe "two books a year." So they want to write a novel, and do it during NaNoWriMo, and their idea makes no sense.

My advice would be - a novel? From the word go? Without getting your writing basics down? Start smaller and let it grow.

I have NOT said this to them.

I think they are setting themselves up for personal failure or disappointment, and it may turn them off writing for good. They are already comparing themselves to other people, and I think that is another thing they should not do, especially as last year 12 of us on the server cracked 100k words in the month.

I can't even encourage them to continue because I think it is not going to end well; in a conversation in PM with another long-term person, they feel the same way and are worried this person will bring everyone down as they fall behind, or they'll lie about it which does only cheat themselves, but it makes us feel uncomfortable.

So... here is my question: How would you approach this?

Thanks in advance.