Fifty thousand words in 30 days.

That’s the goal of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. I’ve done this contest for the last two years and won both times. This year, I am working on my third book for the challenge, titled “Out of Darkness.”

I realize the task of writing 50,000 words in a span of a mere 30 days sounds daunting, but it’s actually a lot easier than you might think. To successfully reach the minimum amount of words by Nov. 30, you only have to write 1,667 words a day, which is about two-and-a-half Microsoft Word pages.

NaNoWriMo is a challenge I would recommend to any and all writers. Whether you’ve just declared an English or writing major, or you’ve been writing for years, you should consider doing this project.

I know we are already four days into November, but that’s exactly where I was two years ago when I completed my first NaNoWriMo. I even managed to finish it five days early, reaching the goal of 50,000 words in a writing period of 21 days.

If you love writing, do this challenge. Visit www.nanowrimo.org for more information, and start writing your own novel. The contest is a lot of fun, sometimes stressful, but always rewarding.

When you reach the deadline and you write that 50,000th word, you will have a huge feeling of accomplishment. But, if you’re like me, you might reach that word count, and your story still won’t be done, so you’ll only be able to enjoy reaching the goal for a bit before continuing to write.

This contest is probably the most fun I have with a writing project each year. Now that I’ve done the challenge twice, I have a good feeling about this year. Try out the contest. Even if you don’t meet the word count goal, at least you tried. The challenge is extremely rewarding and gives writers an excuse to write each day for 30 days. If you do NaNoWriMo this year, be sure to have fun with it.