Here’s one of those things I’ve wanted to do but probably won’t. National Novel Writing Month, wherein you have exactly thirty days (Nov. 1 to Nov. 30) to write a novel. 50,000 words, 175 pages. It’s kind of a contest, but there are no prizes, no awards, and the only thing you have to do to “win” is actually finish your novel. It’s really just an exercise in perserverance. From the site:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

Now, since I already write a lot of crap here on this weblog, I figure that should be able to scale pretty well. I would just have to keep the crap machine turned on. So what if I’m no good at plotting or developing characters or writing dialogue? None of that matters in this contest. The only stumbling block would be time. Writing takes time, even if all you’re writing is half-thought out crap. And time is something I’m not finding myself with a lot of lately. My days have been breaking down to 8 hours of work, 3 hours of sleep and 10 hours of taking care of Viola and the baby. That doesn’t leave much time left to write. I’d probably start my novel and reach 2,000 words by the end of the month. That might make a decent children’s novel, but a NaNoWriMo winner not.

I think the contest is rigged to favor single people. Those of us with a life don’t even have a shot.