Craft vs. Crap

by Sarah Benjamin

Since as far as I can remember, premier literature has always been acclaimed with awards and honors. In many ways, a book without an award or recognition of some kind, will never reach the ears and eyes of many people. But obtaining these accolades takes years, the perfection of craft and a dedication to the art of writing. It is with these lofty goals in mind that many English Writing majors, like myself, push their minds to the limit, constantly reshaping and editing sentences and words until we can recite them by heart. It's not only college students that have this obsession, but also anyone that understands that writing is an art form that demands passion and dedication.

Not all of us are granted the leisure of writing for a living, however, and have to fit it into the daily routine of family and work obligations. That's why when I found out about National Novel Writing Month, I was thrilled and encouraged. A deadline was the perfect fire to keep my writing going. But as I sat down and continued to be awed over this, my thoughts expanded to the hundreds of thousands of people who were participating around the world.

In some ways, this was awesome – all these people who want to write! The written word was still alive! But then a horrible thought hit me that continued to linger well into November.

It was probably all crap.

Okay, so I am not so full of myself that I don't realize that I haven't written crap before. All writers probably have written something they would never let the light of day shine on. But I have spent money and time over four years to mold my craft. In my free time I write and read. My icons are not sports players, celebrities or even my parents for that matter. They are novelists, craftsmen and women, writers. They are people such as Margaret Atwood, Raymond Carver, and Virginia Woolf. I do not see writing as an enjoyable hobby I do in my free time. Writing is a lifestyle that many people just don't understand.

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I am a writer.”

“No, really. What do you do for a living?”

“I write.”

So at the end of the month, when all those thousands of people crossed the finish line of 50,000 words, there will be a certain distinction among them months later. There will be those that think they wrote 50,000 words and think it's the best piece of written work they will ever hope to achieve. It may or may not be bound and sold, but inevitably in a few years, there will be something that smells faintly sour in bookstores. Not completely definable or traceable, but present nonetheless.

Then there are those people that crossed the finish line and will look at their work and think, “This is utter crap. I need to fix it.” And months later, years later, they might still be tweaking words and sentences to get it just right. They will have added and taken away. And eventually, when their editor or friends can no longer stand the, “I just want to fix this one thing...just this one thing”, they will grab it from their hands and send it to a publisher. It may take a few rejections before the acceptance, but it is those books that will make it to the award panels. It will be those books that people quote from years later. It will be those books that will beckon other readers to the open arms of the bookstore, their clean, crisp scent warming the blood of the faithful.

National Novel Writing Month is not the end all; to a writer it is only the means to an eventual end. It is the necessary catalyst that writers need to get words on the page. It is what happens after the time is up and the hype dies down that will distinguish a writer from a person who writes.

For more information about how you can participate in National Novel Writing Month or support their community initiatives, go to their website at www.nanowrimo.org.