Don't Submit December

Old Hack

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A couple of my publishing friends have already received submissions of work which was written for NaNoWriMo.

They've all said that these submissions are in much need of revision, and that the writers seem to have hurried to submission. Perhaps on the adrenaline rush of finishing NaNoWriMo? I don't know. But that would certainly explain the increase in submissions that agents and editors receive in the first week or two of December.

Please, do not be one of these writers. Don't blow your chances by sending your work out too soon.

Before you send your NaNo project anywhere, let it sit for a while and then spend a good amount of time revising it. You'll be glad you did.
 

Becky Black

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Good advice. :) I'm amazed people do this. I'd like to make the assumption that they are just very young and overly enthusiastic, but I'll bet some of them are old enough to at least realise that's probably not how it works and they should go look some stuff up first.

3 of my NaNo novels have been published now, but they certainly weren't ready for submission in the December after the November I wrote them!
 

Old Hack

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I've seen the upsurge in submissions which happens in the first week of December. It's just amazing.

Congratulations on your publications, by the way.
 

measure_in_love

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I've heard of this being a problem before. I was a little over enthusiastic after writing my first novel my freshman year of college, which should not have been read by anyone. It's a little embarrassing looking back on old writing haha. But I needed some adrenaline to get me to write more, so I joined NaNo last year. It helped me pump some energy, and get words down. This was last year's NaNo, by the way. And I'm still writing this book. I may be a bit of a perfectionist and also get distracted easily, but I want it to be as perfect as I could get it before sending it out to anyone. I'm maybe 16k words through right now. That involved a *lot* of deleting after NaNo.

Just thought I'd put some words in. I've actually heard some agents on youtube say that they call it "Rejection December" or something like that. :/
 

itsmary

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Geez, I don't even want to look at my NaNo project until January at the earliest.
 

AshleyEpidemic

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This disturbs me just a little. I can only imagine all of the simple errors reading through it once, even lazily could fix. Not to mention all the work that needs to go in to whip it into a publishable state. Alas, another instance of people who need to be educated about reality.
 

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This pains me.

I really wish there was more emphasis on NaNoWriMo the first draft of a novel, not a completed novel.
I think there's a lot of emphasis on it. People are just impatient. I heard of one guy who self-published his draft. He knew it needed work, made a point to say it, but still put it up, just because he wanted to see his work out there. I mean, he hadn't fixed it AT ALL, spelling errors and typing errors and all.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Oh, I thought this was some sort of boycott thread, telling us not to submit in December to show publishers just how important our contributions are and that we should get a raise!

No. It's about goofs who send in their Nanowrimo novel before it's ready.
 

GingerGunlock

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I think there's a lot of emphasis on it. People are just impatient. I heard of one guy who self-published his draft. He knew it needed work, made a point to say it, but still put it up, just because he wanted to see his work out there. I mean, he hadn't fixed it AT ALL, spelling errors and typing errors and all.

Maybe it's just who you listen to? In the pep talks, say, I don't recall anything of the nature of "draft" vs. "novel". I could've missed it, though, November tends to be something of a haze.
 

Becky Black

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This pains me.

I really wish there was more emphasis on NaNoWriMo the first draft of a novel, not a completed novel.

People are pretty hot on that on the forums.

But too much emphasis on that might not be a good thing, because that turns it into a purely writers event for people who are expecting to take that draft and work on it later and go for publication.

But I think a lot of people who do NaNoWriMo aren't intending that. They might never touch their novel again, or never write another one, but NaNoWriMo teaches them lessons about releasing and exploring their creativity and slaying the fell beast Perfectionism that dooms so many of our efforts at trying new things.

Putting too much emphasis on what you're "supposed" to do after the event can take away from the event itself.

But yes, anyone who is writing with the intention of submitting, self-publishing, or even just posting on a fanfic site should listen to the advice to slow the hell down and make sure they've done the work to get it into shape wherever they intend to send it.
 

onesecondglance

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I think a proportion of those people who just set out to see if they can do it then become those planning to submit when they realise they actually did do it.

It's not beyond the ability of Nano to start incorporating "don't submit / self-publish! revise first!" messages into the last week of Pep Talks.
 

chompers

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Maybe it's just who you listen to? In the pep talks, say, I don't recall anything of the nature of "draft" vs. "novel". I could've missed it, though, November tends to be something of a haze.
Yeah, it's mentioned a lot in the Nano forums. But I don't read the pep talks, so I don't know if they've ever mentioned it there. I guess they should, ha.
 

GingerGunlock

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Yeah, it's mentioned a lot in the Nano forums. But I don't read the pep talks, so I don't know if they've ever mentioned it there. I guess they should, ha.

Ah, and I don't really read the Nano forums. So there we have it :D

Maybe it would be discouraging in the pep talks? "YOU CAN DO IT! But let's not get carried away here..."
 

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Chris Baty's NaNoWriMo book also stresses "Yeah, not so fast" when it comes to firing off your first draft to agents and publishers on Dec. 1.

And it still blows my mind that people actually do that. I think my 2011 NaNo novel has finally been edited enough that I could maybe possibly perhaps start showing it to other people next year, but it took me an insanely long time to get to this point.
 
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chompers

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Ah, and I don't really read the Nano forums. So there we have it :D

Maybe it would be discouraging in the pep talks? "YOU CAN DO IT! But let's not get carried away here..."
So we figured out just where it went wrong and how to fix it? My God, we are GENIUSES! :e2headban
 

Nekko

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Even when I finished (as in - got to the end) of my first book, I didn't even consider shipping it right off to publishers. I knew it at least needed a good edit.

Granted - while I'm new to writing, I think I'm on the older end of the spectrum of NaNo writers, so maybe life has taught me to be a tad more patient, and that I am *gasp* fallible.
 

Becky Black

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Good idea to have it in the pep talks. Maybe they could get an editor or agent to do one, in the last week. Like, "don't send your novel to me/people like me yet!"
 

Persei

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Good advice. :) I'm amazed people do this. I'd like to make the assumption that they are just very young and overly enthusiastic, but I'll bet some of them are old enough to at least realise that's probably not how it works and they should go look some stuff up first.

3 of my NaNo novels have been published now, but they certainly weren't ready for submission in the December after the November I wrote them!

Eeeeeh, I'm young and completely non-entusiasthic though I do recall thinking about how not-that-bad my writing was in my first couple of years writing but... It was. It was pretty bad.

I think the problem with NaNo is that it gives a lot of emphasis about getting the story or novel written, though they rarely talk about the other things you have to do after you finish writing your draft (be it the first, or the tenth). Here in AW I read "Edit later!" several times. I didn't see it on NaNo forums. There's a lot of people talking about getting stuff done, and enthusiastic about word count, and very few who approach revising/editing after it's all over and then submitting.
 

Persei

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Yeaah, there *is* a lot about that. What I tried to say is the ratio is smaller. But in the most recent pep talk, they actually talk a little about editing and such after November is over. Not enough, I think, but they did.

Either way we all lurk in different parts of the forums and such so... As a younger writer, I stay at the children's table and this might explain my point of view :D