Happy November, everyone! Do you want to end this month with an incomparable feeling of accomplishment? Are you or your child an aspiring writer of fiction? Then you should definitely check out NaNoWriMo, where participants are working to write entire novels in just this one month. (The event is held annually.)

This is a great way to break through perfectionism and procrastination, which are huge roadblocks for writers in any genre! One month, 50,000 words. They could be the 50,000 poorest chosen words in the English language and it wouldn’t matter. This is totally a quantity over quality exercise, a way of getting started and learning to feel like a real writer. Of course, you can’t write 50,000 words without learning a little something about yourself and the art of writing at the same time.

Younger children have their own version of the enterprise, the Young Writers’ Program. Children can set their own age appropriate writing goals and get a great start at writing just like the grown-ups.

If I were in any way interested in writing fiction, I’d be all over this opportunity. Maybe there should be a non-fiction version of the project. Or even a blogging version!

Edit: It looks like the response has been even bigger than anticipated! There are reports that the NaNoWriMo servers are under quite a load on this, the first official day of writing. If you can’t get through yet, keep trying back later. It’ll be worth the wait. In the meantime, go ahead and start your first chapter!

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