Updates on NaNoWriMo and The Comic Sans Experiment

Happy December, y'all!

Last month I told you about The Comic Sans Experiment I planned to implement during the month of November. (If you missed the post you can read it HERE.) As promised, this is an update on what happened.

I participated in National Novel Writing Month and finished with a win, crossing the 50,000 word goal on November 29th. Did using the Comic Sans font make the process any easier? Honestly, I think it did. Now, do I think there is anything magical about the Comic Sans font? Of course not. As I surmised last month, I think the effect is purely psychological in that the change from using the staid, formal Times New Roman font to something more carefree allows us to drop the expectations that go along with the formality and just create. In my opinion, probably any other less formal, less Times New Roman font would work as well.

Another thing that I think helped me was that I upgraded my laptop mid-month. I know, what kind of idiot upgrades their laptop when they are in the middle of trying to reach an insane goal during an already hectic month? This one, apparently. I had been considering updating my laptop for some time but stumbled across a great deal on what is technically a gaming laptop. Even though I won't use it for gaming, it has much better specs than a lot of similar, more expensive laptops. Since it is a gaming laptop it also has an awesome backlit, color-changing keyboard. I love my new keyboard. I like color but, colorful laptops can be hard to find. (Why do laptop manufacturers think everyone wants matte black? How boring.) So, a colorful keyboard was the perfect compromise. However, I was worried that I would be so engrossed in watching the color change that I would fail to focus on my writing. Fortunately, that fear was unfounded. (Whew!) It helps that my new laptop keyboard has an excellent "feel." When PCs first became a thing (yes, I'm old enough to remember that) most keyboards were difficult for me to use because they required a firm touch and I have a very light one. Over the years, I learned to use more force when typing but it doesn't come naturally. My new keyboard is wonderful though. The feel of the keys is quite pleasant and makes typing a dream so, a poorly timed upgrade which could have turned into a disaster actually turned out to be another win.

Here's to a long and productive relationship with my new laptop/keyboard. *raises diet soda in toast*

Until next time, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and I'll see you again in 2020.

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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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