NaNoWriMo: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It’s National Novel Writing Month, and the devotees are in full swing. Although I don’t do NaNo (for reasons I’ll explain below) I admire those that try. It’s a tremendous endeavor, and an admirable one. It’s not for everyone though. The caveat: there’s a very specific group of people that I think it works for, and for others it’s not appropriate.

I recently had a Facebook round table with my writer friends–some in favor of NaNoWriMo, some against–and I’m going to attempt to show all opinions,...