What is NaNoWriMo and Why Do I Torture Myself Every November?

It’s almost that time of year again, folks. That’s right, it’s nearly National Novel Writing Month! What is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as it’s more commonly known), you ask? Well, it’s this:

National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel during the thirty days of November.

Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand-new...