Earlier today, Emma sent me a link to this web site about National Novel Writing Month. Basically, this organization annually hosts a “fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.”

While it sounds a little intense and slightly insane, I signed up to be a part of it. I am not kidding when I say I have dozens and dozens of word documents, draft emails, hand-written scribbles, AIM conversations, you name it, of chapter outlines, first pages, character bios, plot summaries and potential titles for all the short-lived ideas I’ve had over the last 6 or 7 years. Writing a novel is something I have wanted to do since I could read, and I have continuously failed to take it to the next fundamental level.

Ideally, this is not a project one should rush (1,667 words a day is ungodly!), but I think at the very least, this designated month and this challenge could serve as mere inspiration to really jumpstart something I have often been too scared to fully pursue. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be dedicating non-work-related time to really putting this all together. Needless to say, if every time I wrote a blog entry about not having enough time to write, I could have written the next bestseller by now.

Here’s hoping.