Well, it’s time to write the novel you’ve been putting off for all this time. And by that I mean it’s really time, like, now, because it’s November, once again time for National Novel Writing Month, the dreaded NaNoWriMo. By now, you should know the drill: You’re challenged to write a whole novel in one month, 30 days, 50,000 words, with a hard deadline of midnight local time on November 30th. It doesn’t matter what it’s about or how good it is or anything; you just register, hammer it out from scratch, upload it to the NaNoWriMo website, they certify that you wrote 50,000 words (one word repeated 50,000 times doesn’t count), and you get a certificate saying that you did it. That’s it. There are groups all over the place who offer support and encouragement, and you can get word count widgets and other stuff to help you out at the website, too.

It’s less an exercise in writing well than it is an exercise in breaking past the block you put on yourself that prevents you from writing or, for that matter, doing anything. Nobody’s going to judge what you write, but some NaNoWriMo novels have ended up published, and some by major publishers, so you never know. But if you’ve been meaning to write a novel and need a kick in the butt to get going, your annual kick in the butt is here. Go write something.

(Me? No time. Yeah, I know, but YOU write on two jobs all day and use whatever time you have left to write some more. I prefer my head not to explode, thank you. Or should I give it a shot? Sleep is overrated…)