Most of you probably think that what’s most important about October 31 is Hallowe’en. But around the world, thousands of people anxiously await the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, which begins at midnight tonight.

Yes, NaNoWriMo is the month when thousands of would-be authors sit down and churn out pages and pages of fiction. The idea is simple:– for people who have always wanted to write a novel, NaNoWriMo provides a structure for actually sitting down and writing that novel. The would-be novelist gets a deadline (November 30), a minimum number of words to write (50,000), and therefore a daily writing target (1,666 words a day). The point is not to produce a finished novel, but to get through the first draft of the novel.

Not everyone writes a novel, though. Last year, my older sister decided to produce a non-fiction book during NaNoWriMo. She figured non-fiction was harder to write than fiction, so she decided she only needed to write 45,000 words during NaNoWriMo — still enough prose to fill a book.

This year, I’ve decided to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge. I’m not exactly going to be writing a novel (no, I’m not going to tell you about my project here), but I do plan to write 50,000 words in all. I figure I have a one-in-two chance of actually reaching this goal. If things get crazy at work, I won’t be able to reach my goal. And writing 2,000 words a day is a stretch for me — my usual output is 500 words a day. On the other hand, I’ve already got 3,500 words written and November hasn’t even started yet.

Participating in NaNoWriMo is a stupid thing for me to do, really. My life is full enough as it is, I don’t need to write 1,666 words a day. But I’m thinking it’s maybe a kind of spiritual discipline, a kind of self-flagellation for a religious liberal. Or maybe it’s not a spiritual discipline at all, maybe it’s my descent from being blogging-maniakku into becoming a writing-otaku.