It’s November, so that means it’s time to clunk out your novel along with hundreds of thousands of others. Everyone has that unfinished masterwork that they just need time and motivation to complete. Who will finish? Who will produce something that only a mother can love?

November's National Novel Writing Month bills itself as “thirty days and nights of literary abandon!” Its purpose is simple. Writers, would-be-writers and never-have-been-writers are supposed to click out their novels at breakneck speed and hit the 50,000 word mark on the 30^th. That breaks down to be about 1,700 words per day, which seems reasonable, if you can think of a great idea. If you can't, yikes.

The exercise is in its twelfth year, so the organizers really understand the kind of support that writers—especially new writers—need. They offer widgets that count your words for you. They have profiles in which you can write the title of your novel and its content. They have a “Writing Buddies” section so you can make virtual friends with whom you can share your ideas.

I think NaNoWriMo is awesome. But real writers—i.e. writers who get paid—supposedly loathe things like this during which amateurs bleed and sweat over somebody else’s life blood for a mere thirty days.

And I get it. Serious writers need to be this productive every day of their lives, so amateurs “suffering” through thirty days of it seems sort of silly. But no one’s saying that you’re supposed to finish the novel in the time allotted (50,000 words may be better classified as a “novella,” anyway).

But no one can deny that cranking out 50,000 words of even unfinished gobbledygook in 30 days is impressive. I’ve had much greater success when I have a deadline than when I don’t. That’s one benefit. Everyone can give his or herself a goal that they need to fill, and if they don’t meet it, they'll get a lot more flack from their family and friends and Facebook group than they would on a normal writing assignment.

Plus, it’s a whole month of having a physical community with whom you can commiserate and share ideas. Writing is often a very solitary profession with peers that live states or countries away. NaNoWriMo organizes writing communities in nearly every city where writers can meet and write together. The kind of support and encouragement is what writers dream about, but usually can only achieve during a short tenure in graduate school.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? What’s your great novel’s plot?