November Is National Novel Writing Month (Commentary)

November begins a tradition in my household and that's participating in NaNoWirMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  It's a celebration of the written word and in this case 50,000 words written in 30 days.  It's a fun challenge and I recommend that everyone try it.  It's easier than a marathon and afterward you'll have a novel to read, maybe revise and maybe give to someone to read.  Let's be clear though, publication is not the goal.  It's about quantity over quality.  Novels (or novellas, because let's be honest novels are longer than 50,000 words) written during this time are all probably crap.   Yet you never know, you might find something special in what spews out of you, some literary creature that with time you can nurture into . . . something.   If anything what this project does is activate people into writing and that's a great thing.   So give it a try.  You don't win anything if you succeed or lose anything if you come short.  I've done this for three years and once I wasn't able to reach my goal.  So what.  I finished in December instead.