One word...um, acronym: NaNoWriMo.

While you’re busy worry about if that last semi-colon was placed, Danielle Steele and her heirs are making a fortune.  Tell you what.  Just write 50,000 words in November and worry about if it’s good after the fact.  If it’s half bad, you’ve still got 50 pages that you can keep.  Last year, when I tried to write a novel, I wound up with 3 short stories and 4 poems.  That’s not so bad.  If you can’t do it this month, no worries.  There are more similar challenges than there are months of the year to do them in.  For a list of quantity writing challenges and more information, visit the site.

The Chicago liaison has posted some NaNo related events for those of you who need an extra kick in the pants:

“Here are some other exciting things you can look forward to this month: the statewide write-in on 11/22; the CTA write-in (date TBD - it will either be Sunday 11/9 or 11/16); the Open Books Virtual Book Drive (see the front page of the ChiWriMo site beginning 11/1 for more details!); prizes for attending official ChiWriMo write-in nights at Open Books; and much more!”