Have you ever harboured dreams of writing your own novel? Why, what perfect timing! Because November, also known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), is finally here.

The concept is simple. You sign up for free at their site any time between now and the 30th of November, then just start pounding away at your keyboard. Your goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight of November 30. It’s all about quantity, not quality, and just writing with complete abandon, so as to avoid getting bogged down by editing and the search for the perfect adjective.

Last year, some 100,000 people signed up, with some 15,000 winners crossing the 50k-word finish line. I wasn’t one of them because I never got past the first page :P

A few days ago, I was all ready and psyched up to try again this year, with ideas for a plot and the main characters all swirling in my head. Reality check: in between my duties as a wife and mother, the demands of my job, a couple of overseas trips planned for this month, a fat burner review, and a long overdue article for a friend in Poland, I doubt if I can get any serious, uninterrupted writing done. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I’ve always been the type who can’t seem to write anything on some days, then one day just hole up for hours on end in my home office, churning out blog posts, miscellaneous articles and (snail mail) letters.

What about you? Care to join NaNoWriMo as it celebrates “10 years of literary abandon” this year?