Registration opens Monday for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place Nov. 1-30.

Regular readers will be familiar with this challenge, which I completed in 2004 and hope to try again this year, if I can come up with a good premise in the next month. For those who have missed my earlier posts, I’ll recap:

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write a 50,000-word novella (somehow, National Novella Writing Month just doesn’t have the same zing) completely during the month of November. You can outline or make preparations but can’t actually start writing until midnight on the morning of Nov. 1.

“But John,” you’re protesting, “there’s no way to write a good novel in 30 days.”

Who said anything about good? The point is that you have to make yourself write an average of 1,667 words a day, which means you don’t have time to edit or second-guess yourself. Some of what you write will be absolutely awful. But when you turn off your internal editor, you also discover that some of what you write will be … surprising. Maybe even … good. It’s a wonderful exercise in disciplining yourself to set aside time for writing every day.

In 2004, the first year I tried NaNoWriMo, I found my story going in directions I hadn’t originally planned on. It was fun; I still need to go back and see if I can rewrite what I wrote that year, although I fear that even if it’s good, it won’t be very marketable.

In 2005, I made the attempt, but I had a bad initial premise and couldn’t go anywhere with it, so I gave up. Last year, I was in the middle of rehearsals for a play and knew I would not have the time, so I sat it out. This year, I want to make a run at it again.

A few months back, I made an attempt at starting a novel which would play off my short-term international mission experience. My opening was too talky and I got busy planning for an actual trip. I may start from scratch and try a new novel along the same lines.

There are no prizes, and everything is on the honor system. When you register at the NaNoWriMo web site, you get a profile page where you can update your word count as the month progresses, or (if you like) post an excerpt from your novel for others to read. There are online message boards for you to vent and swap motivational ideas. There are podcasts and information on the web site to encourage you, and in some cases NaNoWriMo participants get together and have parties, with everyone bringing their laptop and writing.

At the end of the month, you can upload your novel to the web site for an automatic word count. (The NaNoWriMo staff does not read the submissions, but if you’re concerned about plagiarism they suggest you search and replace every letter in your document to “x” and upload it that way.) If you met the goal, you get access to an icon you can download and put on your web site identifying you as a winner.

This is a great experience, and if you’re at all interested in exploring your creativity as a writer I highly recommend it. More information is available at the web site.