Some will sweat it out, some will write it off, but for those who just need deadlines to write, the seventh annual National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, kicks off today. The event’s name is a misnomer; at last count, 44,883 writers throughout the world signed on for the challenge of writing a novel of at least 175 pages, or 50,000 words, by midnight on Nov. 30.

One may well wonder what leads one, let alone 45,000, to such a masochistic act. Lacking such concrete rewards as money or publication, NaNoWriMo is billed by its organizers as an empowering event. According to the website, “NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved … In 2004, we had over 42,000 participants. Nearly 6,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline…. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.”

Related links:
Click here for the official website for NaNoWriMo
Click here for a Guardian article about the blogging community’s response to NaNoWriMo