There’s been times when I thought I had completely planned out the book well before starting NaNo - and then it turned out that, as they say, “the difference between having strategy and tactics is that in the battlefield, strategy is the first thing that gets thrown out as unpractical”. Even if I think I have a daily plan for everything, some days I might sit down and write 2000+ words and sometimes do 200 and then go “eeh, my head is empty, what now?”. And then I’d feel really bad. The biggest skill at that point is to learn not to feel bad and instead just accept that sometimes you have to improvise.
I’ve tried a lot of approaches through NaNos. Last year I had a very loosely sketched structure plan which worked okay, while letting me come up with ground-level details on the fly. I’ve sometimes done a lot more clearer plans too. Sometimes I just go “damn it, absolutely had no time to plan anything this year” and go completely wacky. This year it was something different, had ideas on setting and main character and the structure, and at practical level it worked pretty darn okay for generating more ideas for worldbuilding on the fly.
Varmasti yksi syy tähän on se, että työttömiä kannustetaan yksityisyrittäjiksi, vaikka kaikilla ei siihen ole rahkeita. Sen sijaan, että keksittäisiin kehittää työttömyystukijärjestelmää niin, että freelancereita ja muita lyhyen työrupeaman löytäneitä ei enää rankaistaisi ja oudosti mulkoiltaisi, kun tämä on monilla aloilla jo normaalia. Ja kevytyrittäjyyteenkin Kela suhtautuu mulkoilevin silmin.