1700

According to legend, November is a magical month. At some point in ancient times, it became known as National Novel Writing Month. It's the time of year when a challenge is issued to writers everywhere. That challenge? Write an entire novel within the confines of November's 30 days.

The rules are fairly simple. Novels must reach a minimum of 50,000 words by 11:59 the night of November 30. So, if one does the math correctly, that means that each day a writer must get approximately 1,667 words on paper... or on the screen... whatever.

I tried to accomplish this task last year. I failed. I came closer than I've ever been to completing a novel. But I didn't quite finish it. And it was crap.

But the point of NaNoWriMo isn't to write a sparkling, polished bestseller. The organizers of this event emphasis quantity over quality. A lot of novels that are churned out during the month of November will never see the light of day. But some do. Ever heard of a little book called Water for Elephants? It was recently turned into a movie with Reese Witherspoon and the vampire from Twilight. Yeah, it was written as a part of NaNoWriMo. That tells me it's possible to get this done.

So I'm trying. And I've challenged myself to write 1700 words a day. That way I'm overshooting the minimum just a little. And in 30 days, I guess we'll see where I end up. And we'll see what happens.

Wish me luck. Oh, and along with this, there may be days that I won't feel like coming up with something to post on here. There will probably be a lot of days when coming up with 1700 words will be a struggle. So by the time I hit my goal for the day, I may not feel like racking my brain anymore. But I'll do my best. Stay tuned...