The Comic Sans Experiment

It's the first of November so once again I will be participating in the annual madness that is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I've written other posts about NaNoWriMo in the past but for those of you who aren't familiar with it, NaNo is when writers across the globe come together and cheer each other on as they attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. It's both insane and fun. Yes, I understand that I may have a somewhat skewed interpretation of the word "fun" and yes, I know there are people out there who routinely write more than 50K words a month. NaNoWriMo isn't for them, it's for the rest of us.

However, this year I am going to change things up a bit. Recently, one of my friends shared a post on Facebook about how writing using the Comic Sans font can make you more productive. Screen shots of the post are shown below:

I even did an internet search on the phrase "does using Comic Sans make you more productive." The first page of results was nothing but article after article stating that yes, it does.

In a way, it makes sense. Times New Roman is very formal and is The Official Font of Everything. Editors and publishers want our manuscripts in Times New Roman (double-spaced, thank you very much) and, during my almost thirty-four years as an employee of the federal government, Times New Roman was a requirement for all of our official correspondence. I suspect the same is true for most private organizations as well. Comic Sans is a more laid-back font, the type of font willing to kick back and watch the games with you on the weekend. So, when we're typing in Times New Roman, as I am now, our subconscious knows that whatever we're working on, even a rough first draft, must be a Big Deal so we are mentally typing at attention, second-guessing each word and self-editing ourselves to the nth degree. To me, it seems only logical that using a less formal font such as Comic Sans let our subconscious know that hey, this isn't the be-all-end-all, it's okay to just relax, be creative, and let the words flow.

So, during this NaNoWriMo, I'm going to conduct The Comic Sans Experiment and see if it really helps me be more productive. If it does, I'll probably do all of my writing in Comic Sans from now on. After all, it's easy to change the font of a document before submitting it. I'll post an update on the outcome next month.

Have any of you tried using Comic Sans to improve your productivity?

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NaNoWriMo and the Monster Within, Part II

For my very first post for Fire Star Press I wrote about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and why it works for me. Once again, NaNoWriMo is upon us and I am busily pounding out words, determined to hit the 50,000 word goal for the first time in several years. Therefore, in the interest of time, I am borrowing a post from my personal blog and updating it a bit. I hope you enjoy!

Photo courtesy of www.123rf.com

As defined on the official web site, “National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.” It is a completely insane idea that is also completely doable. This marks my eighth year of participating in the chaos that is NaNoWriMo. I “won” in 2011, 2012, and 2014 completing 50,000 plus words before the November 30th deadline. The other years all fell short for various reasons.

I'm a huge fan of NaNoWriMo and probably make it sound like it's all unicorns farting rainbows. Alas, it is not. All these years I have harbored a deep, dark secret. I thought that I was the only one until I saw the following tweet from Derek L Reiner (@DerekReiner) on November 16, 2014:

#NaNoWriMo turns me into someone I don’t like. I doubt I could write professionally as the deadlines would turn me into a monster.

I could have hugged the man. I am not alone! I could finally air my dirty little secret – NaNoWriMo turns me into a monster. There. I said it. For thirty days, my world revolves around reaching the 50k goal and heaven help those who get in my way. In order to write 50,000 words in thirty days, you must write an average of 1667 words per day. Life being what it is, I don’t get to write every day which means that I have to double up on other days. I find myself struggling to be nice to those around me. Heaven help my hubby if he invites me to go to a movie, or something else equally innocent.  He deserves better than the response he receives. I snarl at him, my newly grown NaNo fangs dripping venom: “A movie? Are you kidding me? It’s NaNoWriMo – I’ve got 2000 words to write! I don’t have time for a movie.” He slinks off to hide in another room while my claw-tipped paws return to tapping out words.

Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but only just. Most of the time in November I seem like a normal, friendly, middle-aged woman. Most of the time I manage to keep my sarcastic replies locked away inside. On the outside I say “A movie is a wonderful idea! What would you like to see?” while on the inside the NaNo monster howls and threatens to burst out of my chest and rampage through the Nostromo, sparing no lives. Wait, wrong monster. Any way, you get the idea.

To make matters even worse, November is when we celebrate both Thanksgiving and my birthday. The past few NaNos have not gone well for me. November turned out to be the month when an elderly parents health began to fail or one of them passed away. Now that they are no longer with us, my husband has stepped up to fill in the gap and will be having surgery on the shoulder he damaged while we were getting our house ready for Hurricane Michael. So, now that I think about it, may the real monster is November. It senses my determination to compete and throws obstacles in front of me - occasionally insurmountable ones.

However, I'm entering this year's NaNo with a different mindset. Yes, I would like a successful year to prove to myself that I can still do this. However, the past few years have taught me that it's okay to not "win" - it's not the end of the world. So, win or lose at the end of the month I will have quite a few words written that I didn't have before and I'll have a novel ready to go into revisions. So, whether it's a "win" under NaNoWriMo guidelines or not, it will still be a win for me.

Do you NaNo?

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Why NaNoWriMo Works for Me

Hi, everyone! My name is Linda Ward, but I write as Isabella Norse. I’m thrilled to be a new member of the Fire Star Press family. (My short story, The Nerd in Shining Armor, is a part of the Nine Deadly Lives anthology which was published in October.) I’ll be blogging here the first Wednesday of every month. Since my first post falls in the month of November, I want to introduce you to NaNoWriMo and tell you why it works for me.

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it takes place every November. During the month of November, writers from around the world come together to cheer each other on as we each strive to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Now, don’t let the terminology fool you. The term “writer” doesn’t just mean someone that has already written a novel; it means anyone that has ever dreamed of writing a novel. And, our novels are as different as those of us that write them. Some of us focus on original works while others write fan fiction. It doesn’t matter what you write, only that the words are original to you and that they are written during the month of November. You can’t copy and paste 50,000 words from a pre-existing story. Well, you can, but that would be known as cheating.

I had never heard of National Novel Writing Month until 2011, approximately ten days before it started. I had a story that I wanted to write and thought that I would get around to it someday. That year, I decided that someday had arrived. I threw myself into the process and, at the end of the month, I had a rough draft of my first novel! 

In the process of writing that draft, I learned that NaNoWriMo actually works very well for me. Why? Well, I’m a perfectionist. It’s easy for me to spend a lot of time editing the words that I’ve already written instead of actually getting new words down, which means that a first draft can take me a Very. Long. Time. Successfully completing 50,000 words in 30 days means writing an average of 1,667 words per day. That’s a lot of words, especially when doing this on top of working full time, or going to school, or any of those things that make our lives so full. So, in order for me to reach that goal, I have to bind and gag my inner editor, shove her in a closet for the month, and just write.

Just writing isn’t always pretty. You may be thinking that no two characters should ever be forced to have such banal dialogue or that your action scenes have all the impact of snowmen fighting but… It. Doesn’t. Matter. You have the rest of your life to edit. The point of NaNoWriMo is to simply get the words down no matter how rough they may be. However, a few years of experience have shown me that when I go back and re-read my novel, a lot of the things that I thought stunk royally really aren’t that bad. As a matter of fact, some of it is pretty darn good.

Another reason that NaNoWriMo works for me is because I am a very competitive person. I’m not the type to just sit back and not make my goal while my Writing Buddies blow past me to the finish line. Nope. If I start the race, I’m going to do my best to finish it.

So, have you been dreaming of writing a novel? Well, you’ve still got time to sign up. Just go to www.nanowrimo.org and get started. When you get there, look me up, I’m known as RedHeadedViking on the site. We’ll cheer each other on to victory!

Until next month, take care. And, to those of you in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving! If you get a chance, look me up on social media (links below). I’d love to get acquainted!

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