November is National Novel Writing Month. Which means writing 50,000 words between midnight, Nov. 1, and midnight, Nov. 30. A brief explanation:
“Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”
Logically, writing 1,667 words a day for a month, when said month is pretty busy and you’re not really getting anything tangible out of it, is more than a little weird. Why would anyone do that to themselves?
The answer is: because they are insane. Also, it’s fun. Winning isn’t the point (though it helps). The point is to write stuff, and OD on caffeine (if you are me), and have an excuse to be a little bit crazy and a little bit literary for one month of the year.