NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a name given to the initiative because of its month-long duration. The NaNoWriMo program challenges those who have never written a novel before and want to – or those who have and just need some motivation – to write a 50,000-word novel by Nov. 30, only starting on Nov. 1. Authors can't have written any fragment of their novel before then. (Writers need to write at least 1,667 words a day to be done by Nov. 30.) The prize? Being able to call yourself a novelist. The website describes the month as "30 days and nights of literary abandon!," and the program is run by the nonprofit titled the Office of Letters and Light, which is based in California. NaNoWriMo encourages authors to write without worrying about what they're producing – to just get the words down on paper and edit later.
