Assignment #5: The Big One

OK, I planned to do more to prepare you for this, but it just sort of came up and here we are...it's November! Meaning it's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

You can learn the details at nanowrimo.org, but the simple goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel in a month. Definition of a novel: any piece of crap you can come up with, 50,000 words or more in length.

Sound daunting? Well it is. I've tried three times, and every time I fell behind on word count, lost steam, and gave up before the month was half over. But it's still a fun exercise; the very lunacy of what you're asking yourself to do, especially if you're rather unprolific and have never written a novel, makes for very amusing conversations with people.

And, for a bit it feels like you can actually make it: Think about it. If you write 2,000 words per day for at least 25 days in November, you'll make it, and still have Thanksgiving plus a few other days off!

So I invite you to throw together a plot or, barring that, a loose idea for an opening scene, and start writing! Feel free to post excerpts here as you go, or just blog about what a stupid idea this is and how much you hate it. Either way, we'll all be entertained.