I’ve been dipping – on an irregular basis – in to a blog that describes itself as ‘The ramblings of a procrastinating writer’.
Yeah, I know€¦ but speaking as someone who took several years to climb over the procrastination wall, I thought I could help her.
In her ‘ramblings’ she mentions she’s a member of another blog – one called Novel Racers.
The title intrigued, so I’ve occasionally dipped.
But my questions haven’t been answered by what I’ve read so I recently stepped in and put them directly, viz:
‘Who is racing what, where, how and (most importantly)… why?
And having raced, what are the quality measures, and where is the evidence that the race produced quality output?’
The response worried me.
Hi Brennig. Way back a january a fairly small group us set out to see who was first to finish the first draft of a novel. No one checked…..we relied on honesty. Quality wasn’t important wither. in fact racing was important – it was the taking part 🙂
OK, please try to look past the lack of capitalisation, the atrocious grammar and the lack of coherence. Look at the issue.
I saw it straight away.
Quality in writing being unimportant?
Really?
I went back with a statement that quality in writing was an issue that any reader – and honest writer – really would think was important.
Her response ground me to a halt.
And for all the wrong reasons.
Brennig, quality is important but it’s not for other racers to judge other racers, if you get my point. The Novel racers is a motivational support group, we don’t critque etc we support 🙂 So the race is a moticational tool and nothing more……..
Firstly, try to get past the awful grammar again.
Secondly I think she meant critique rather than critque and motivational not moticational.
Thirdly she clearly fails to understand that a good critique is the ultimate motivational tool.
Fourthly (from the point of a reader) what is the point of nurturing and supporting people who have no ability to write? How can this be more cruel than telling them right up front ‘you’re not good enough to write for anyone’?
Fifthly (from the point of an author) where is the point in encouraging people to generate even more dire trash to take the ever growing mountain of slush to even taller heights – and trash that isn’t ever going to get published at that?
Sixthly her responses are precisely the reason why quality in writing is important. Anyone who makes so many errors in so few sentences shouldn’t be in charge of a crayon – let alone a document producing device.
So I’ve stopped going there as of this evening.
I’ve stopped going to the novel racers and I’ve also stopped going to the website of the writer I wanted to help.
I’m sorry about the latter but frankly unless she moves away from the novel racers she’s never going to have an open mind that will value real ‘nurturing’.
B.
This is plain scary.
It takes the behaviour of people who, like the new social clam who they try to make me believe is a colleague of mine, claim that as long as you have posters on your office door it’s not important what they (the posters, that is) say (or what colour they are, or the fact that they’re not quite straight but almost), because it’s having posters that matters, to a whole new level.
Even though I am by the powers of analogy wondering about what my favourite 22-years-old unruly teenager considers as mattering in scientific research.
Plus I can’t understand what business people who can’t use a spell checker and capitalize the first letter of each sentence have with being writers.
I bet they dislike reading, too, for they are Writers, not Readers.
I feel like I’m doing a better job than that and I can’t even speak English properly.
Hiya,
Are you really a 22yo unruly teenager? 🙂
But Chloé, the thing I have to take issue with you over is your allegation that you can’t even speak English properly!
This has to be rubbish. No-one could write in a foreign tongue as you do yet honestly claim to not speak it properly. So don’t come around here with this self-deprecation. Stand up and be counted as the talented linguist that you are.
Sigh.
I really dislike people like this.
I often spend months and months thinking, planning, writing, re-writing, editing, and then double editing, and am then told by another budding author that “She’s a better writer than me as she can write things twice as fast”
Quality is so important when writing. I wish more people understood that.
And Chloé your English is superb!
Thanks to the both of you for your appreciation of my English. It makes me very happy and quite blushing, actually. But what I meant is that my English, as good as it has become in the past two years, is still not up to what I call a literary level (I still make some people frown from time to time with a sentence that had a different implied meaning that the one I wanted to give it, words that only exist in French and past participles after “did”).
And Ginny, seriously, I’m sure you actually need to work harder to create grammatically incorrect sentences with punctuation gone wrong and gross misspells.
But still, this remind me of people in high-school who thought I had good marks in my French literature class because I wrote lengthy papers. I couldn’t have written a short paper had I wanted to (see the length of my blog comments in a foreign language and you’ll understand) but what they couldn’t grasp what that I had good grades because I managed to convey some well formed ideas through my pages of grammatically correct sentences…
I think the next challenge for the Novel Racers should be to write the longest book possible. Plus, that’d keep them busy…
It’s like neurologists having Brain Surgery Races – bugger doing it right, let’s just it finished so we can all go to the pub. What bollocks.
Incidentally, Brennig – DON’T go anywhere near my blog today. You won’t like it.
Mya x
Fourthly (from the point of a reader) what is the point of nurturing and supporting people who have no ability to write? How can this be more cruel than telling them right up front ‘you’re not good enough to write for anyone’?
What is the point of teaching adults to ride when they’ll never be out there competing? What is the point of teaching the guitar to someone who’ll never play in public?
If they have a passion for what they’re doing and a commitment to it, then it doesn’t matter that they’re not going to write the next must-read bestseller, does it?
I dread to think what you make of NaNoWriMo!
Aha Caroline, the hole in your point is the use of the word ‘teaching’. This implies ‘learning’ and ‘improving’.
I put it that the people in question have demonstrated they have no intention of learning or improving by their statement that quality is not an issue they consider.
I also put it that most people who have a passion for what they’re doing and a commitment to it also have a desire to be *good* at it.
Clearly that doesn’t exist in their universe.
I have no views on NaNoWriMo having never been there.
🙂
I’ve not come across the group, admittedly, but from reading what you’ve said above they’re encouraging each other to complete a first draft. Quality isn’t an issue I consider in my first drafts either, what’s more important to me is that I can get the shape of the piece out of my head and onto the paper. It’s not until I go back for the first revision that I get the “Shit, I can’t believe I wrote that!” moments and start to think about better ways to say what I’m trying to say.
Not an approach that works for everyone, but still a valid one, I think.