One of the huge social changes that have happened because of the Internet is that one person’s idea – odd or otherwise – can become a phenomenon. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is such a phenomenon. Chris Baty started this project in July 1999 with 21 writers in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2000 it was moved to November in order to take “advantage” of the normally miserable weather the Bay area experiences in that month.

The ground rules are thus: one must begin an entirely new novel-writing project, and to complete a manuscript of at least 50,000 words entirely within the month of November.

I am currently writing two novels, and one of them is a new project (but not completely new – I am over the 10,000 word mark). I decided to use the “collective vibe” of NaNoWriMo to get 50,000 words written during November 2011. But I’ve backed off on that. It’s not realistic for me.

So – my personal goal is to get at least 1,000 words a day written on my novel during November 2011. My hat goes off to the brave (?) souls willing to give this a try. Me – I know that even if I could do this, I’d produce pure crap. Heck, I’m a bit worried that’s what I’m doing anyway. Over 200,000 people are giving it a shot.

It’s going to take a lot for me to write 1000 words a day. I had set that as a goal for myself, and then realized that 500 was more like it. I do, after all, have a day job, and yes, I enjoy my life. Since I’ve started keeping track, my average is 545 words/day. That included one zero, so the average for the days when I actually wrote anything was 654. A long way from 1000.

So here I go. I’ll try to post snippets of progress here, but I don’t want to distract myself. I registered with NaNoWriMo, but have realized that since I’m outside their rules, I can’t actually participate.

1000 words a day. To infinity… And beyond!