National Novel Writing Month

For whatever reason, November was designated as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo in its shortened form. A quick look into the history of NaNoWriMo shows that July 1999 was the first occurrence, but it was moved to November to better utilize that month's miserable weather. What it is is this: during the month of November people are encouraged to write their own 50,000 word novel by 11:59 p.m. of November 30th. There are no rules other than the work be something that could be considered a novel (roughly anything fictional), it must be started from scratch (no old material), it must have one author (no collaboration), and it must be 50,000 words long (that's a lot). A comparison for those who have had the privilege/misfortune to read it, my unfinished novel A Certain Kind of Weird is 61,000 words long. It's quantity, not quality NaNoWriMo is after.

For the past few years I've seen Facebook status updates from people participating in NaNoWriMo, but I've never really considered participating before now. In part, I think that November frequently snuck up on me, and it was too late to start. This year, however, I am aware of November's impending arrival, and I am feeling the itch to write. Though the project I most want to work on is not actually a novel, I think I could find something else to write for a month, possibly even something related to my other project.

So what do you people - if anyone actually still reads this blog - think? Should I go for it? Will this be just another ill-fated attempt to get some more writing down? Or will this actually help motivate and inspire me to write something substantial? Anyone else interested in doing this? Let me know what you think.

If you're curious and want to learn more, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/.