LeWoVoc wrote:
I write a lot, but I do a lot more essays than fiction. I know better than to think I'm a decent fiction writer, so I don't participate in the month they dedicate to people that don't know better than to think they're decent fiction writers.
My day job involves a lot of technical documentation. It's one thing to perfect the formatting for a guide for updating voicemails on a complex BCM system. It's another thing entirely to spit out 1600 words a day of wonderfully horrible fiction writing.
There IS a contest for finished novels for people who are serious about writing, but the majority of NaNo participants are doing it just because it's fun to write without any goal besides finishing a 50K word story. No fretting over grammar or plot holes or anything... just write. Get it out. You can decided whether it's crap or it's worth editing late after the fact.