Is it too soon to be talking about November? I think not.

First, I would like to welcome Anastasia to WORD. We are very excited to have her and we anticipate great literary insights from her in the future. In fact, she's the person who brought this super cool web site to our attention. They call themselves NaNoWriMo. And yes, at first glance it appears that they are some kind of newly discovered dinosaur, but no! Quite the contrary! Can a dinosaur write a novel in 30 days? I'd like to see him try!

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's brilliant! It's crazy! It's... well, I can't really say what it is exactly because I haven't tried it yet. But from my early surfing of their web site, it promises to be an awesome time.

The idea is that starting on November 1st, you begin to write a novel. You cannot begin before midnight on November 1st. That's a big NaNoWriMo no-no. It's all based on the honor system. Without honor, we are animals. You have been forewarned.

Between November 1st and November 30th, the goal is for each member to write a novel of 50,000 words in length. That's a five followed by four zeroes, people. Wow! All that in 30 days? Can it be done? Sure it can! Anything can be done if you put your mind (and your pen) to it!

On their Frequently Asked Questions page, the NaNoWriMo people admit to the insanity of the project, "Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives." Yah! Stupidity! I'm all for it! Of course, this stupidity is nothing like hammering nails into your mother's antique coffee table. This is the good kind of stupid. The kind of stupid where after 30 days of beating yourself senseless with an outpouring of words upon words upon the page, you have created something you never before could have thought possible--your very own novel.

If you would like to join up, they have a young writer's program for students and classrooms. They let you choose your own word count, so choose wisely. Take your time thinking about this. You want to challenge yourself, but you don't want to aim for something that is completely impossible. Think of it this way, if you decide to write a novel of 30,000 words in a month, that's 1,000 words a day. That's a lot. Or is it? You be the judge. Choose your own fate. They want people of all ages and sizes to particpate! Oh, actually, they do discriminate against one type of people.  From the FAQ page:

"Can anyone participate in NaNoWriMo?
No. People who take their writing (and themselves) very seriously should probably go elsewhere. Everyone else, though, is warmly welcomed."

Forget serious, this is novel writing at it's zaniest!

I really can't wait til Nov. 1.