NaNoWriMo 2016 - '18

How vain it is to sit down to write when you haven't yet stood up to live

- David Thoreau

Funny enough, in my case writing is, in more than one way, standing up to live. I've felt guilty for taking the time to write ever since I was a teenager. I'm an older teenager now and have decided to wrestle with the guilt, because I believe that I have something to say.

The first time I participated in NaNo was in 2016, and succeeded in writing 50.000 words of a badly prepared sci-fi plot.

Maybe it had the potential for a real novel, but I have better ideas now, so that one will have to wait for further incubation on my Someday/maybe list (thanks, David Allen).

At that time, I was swallowing Boho Berry's videos on bullet journaling, cuz she was the queen of the scene, and that's why the word count spread was strongly inspired by Kara as well.

I loved the simplicity of this tracker, it sincerely motivated me to daily hammer in 1.667 words.

Since then, I did a loooong detour into cute spreads and themes and shit that I don't really need, and it distracted me from the real purpose of BJ.

I concluded the detour after my weekly spread crisis, that I will write about soon. I just wasn't using the weekly spreads, so I started experimenting with different layouts, but nothing worked.

This made me reconsider my whole setup, which led to a much simpler setup for Nov 2018, and a completely minimalist setup for the new book in 2019 (coming up soon).

Aaaand, as already reported, I found the weekly layout that I really like, and it looks like I will keep using it.

And then I bought the book that changed my whole way of thinking about task management, life, universe and everything.

And yes, this is a teaser for the review of Ryder's book, "The Bullet Journal Method" that I'm reading right now and is making me rethink my whole life LoL

So, yeah. I'm doing it this year. My spread, stripped down to bare necessities, is only the word tracker graph and space for notes. The gray line indicates the average word count, should I stay consistent with 1.667 words per day.

Obviously, that will never happen, but that's ok, as long as I catch up, enjoy the process and

NOT. FEEL. GUILTY.

So my sitting down IS, in fact the standing up. Claiming the time to say what is on my heart. And who knows, maybe someday/maybe, someone will read about it, and not find it a waste of time.