1 Shakespeare: {checking his email} "Dear Mr Shakespeare,"
2 Shakespeare: "We regret that your manuscript, Hamlet, at 32,253 words, did not reach our target word count."
3 Shakespeare: "However, please don't let this discourage you..."
4 Shakespeare: "... as most first time NaNoWriMo participants never manage to complete their 50,000 word opus."

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an organised event in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. That month is November. As the NaNoWriMo web site itself proclaims, "the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality."

If Shakespeare had gone in for this sort of thing, Hamlet would have been more than 50% longer and complete drivel...

However, I am not disparaging NaNoWriMo. If you're taking part, that's great. I'd do it myself if I had time. I just thought it'd make a funny comic. I save my withering damnation for MS PowerPoint.

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2012-09-27 Rerun commentary: It still amuses me that NaNoWriMo is an international event.

If you've done NaNoWriMo before and achieved the target, try setting something more ambitious. I've mentioned to several people that I reckon I could probably write a 50,000 word story in a day. That's barely over 2000 words an hour - a pace which shouldn't be that hard to keep up as long as you don't do anything like stop to think about plotting or anything like that.

No, I haven't put my money where my mouth is on this claim yet. I don't really have the incentive to sacrifice a whole day like that. I think I could possibly do it, but I don't actually want to do it just to prove the point.

Anyone out there game to try the challenge?