Introducing NaNoWriMo

Hello fellow guildians, writers, and readers,

I would like to share with you my yearly reason for carpal tunnel syndrome.
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month
A daunting challenge for writers. For a very good reason. You have 30 days to write the minimum word length for a novel.(although it could be a poetry anthology, short stories, ect.)
The minimum word length:
50,000

Ouch. Factor in jobs, education, bathroom breaks, meals, snacks, dishes, laundry, feeding the pets, vacuuming, shopping, social time, gaming, inevitable wrist pain half-way through, writer's block, forehead bruises associated with writer's block and more and you've got one heck of a month.

It almost seems impossible, doesn't it?
Well, I failed my first year. approx. 8500 words
Succeeded(just barely) my second year. approx. 50,050 words
Succeeded 2000 words over the length the third year. >52,000 words
Finished the first draft of my novel by the start of the third year. >100,000 words

That first year of failure was a real slap in the face. It took me over a month to get over it. But it was also after that when I realized I was incredibly excited that I had failed. Because it was then that I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. No, I don't want to fail for the rest of my life. I want to write. And I wrote 8500 words that month. That was more than I had written between my story and essays combined over the past two years. and believe me, the essays took up about 90% of that word count.

So, I am extremely proud to be one of the many NaNoWriMo-ers that participate in this crazy challenge every year and spread it to anyone that will listen. This challenge is for everyone, new writers, young writers, old writers, writers of every language, culture and ethnicity that has a way to connect to the internet, and published writers.

All that is asked is that you don't edit.

So here's the breakdown (two months are obviously optional but are recommended):
October- Planning Month
November- The Challenge
December- Editing Month

If you would like more information and to sign up for the challenge this year then please go to:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

The site is always interviewing different contestants and published authors. During the challenge you can sign up for pep talk emails done by well-known published authors such as Tamora Pierce. There are also other people doing weekly comics, blogs, etc. that you can check out for laughs and connect to when you're feeling down.

There's approximately 40 days left before the start. Are you ready?