Using NaNoWriMo for everything other than Novel writing

NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It usually happens in the month of November each year. It is also a non-profit organization that helps young writers be able to have their novel (50,000 words) written within one month by setting the goal of writing almost 2,000 words per day.

Now, many of you guys know that I have a dream of writing my own novel and simply getting my stories out there someday; however, almost every year I fail in doing so for many reasons (some of them being reasonable/ understandable…the others being just plain dumb excuses). One of the main reasons is that I’ve had this idea in my head for so long yet I was never really sure how to portray that idea onto paper without being so overly critical of myself. And, by the end of the month, I started to feel horrible about myself because I was never able to reach that particular goal.

So, for this year, I decided to split NaNoWriMo between my blog work and ideas for stories (or simply just working on commissions that I haven’t been able to work on for quite some time). That does mean that I’m going to have to discipline myself more when it comes to all of this and just overall create a plan as well as specific rewards for myself if certain goals have been met. One of the things that I have in mind while doing this is trying to figure out a way to have some kind of accountability in order to show that I have been putting in the work (or at least some kind of work) per day. Today, I was able to work on this blog post because I started to work while having a live “Study With Me” video playing in the background. This particular YouTuber creates accountability based on those who participate in her “Study With Me” sessions but also fills out these scoreboards that everyone can see in order for everyone to show support and keep themselves accountable.

Now, I’m not sure if I will be sharing any scoreboards with you guys or a huge group of people for that matter, but I do realize that I need to keep myself accountable in order to be sure that I get some sort of work done—whether it be just watching at least one episode of an anime, playing an otome or at least editing an image for a thumbnail (though my editor certainly holds me accountable when I don’t get anything written for a particular amount of time). I’m still uncertain what the plan for this month will be; however, I am going to be sure that I work on it throughout the day (before I have to start teaching English to my students).

Thank you for reading. I hope you all have a lovely rest of your day. Until next time, keep your paws and bowls of ramen up, everyone! Nya! 🐾