Do you have a story bubbling away in your head, struggling to get out? Do you wish you could get it down on paper, but you don’t know where to start?

November is National Novel Writing Month, and the non-profit organization, NaNoWriMo, provides the opportunity, encouragement, and structure to help you realize your literary dream. The task is to produce a 50,000- word first-draft novel in 30 days. It sounds daunting, but according to their website, it has been done nearly 368,000 times.

I have done it twice. It is challenging, but the key, like most everything in life, is prior preparation. That is why now is the time to start thinking about it. You need a plot, characters, a theme, settings, a compelling event, a beginning, middle and end, and 60 or so scenes to create your novel. Use October to work out all of those details, and writing 1,666 words a day in November is a doable, even enjoyable task.

The best part is that sometime around November 29th or 30th, after bringing your story to life, you get to write the words “The End”, knowing you have done something few have done. You have written a bad novel.

Then the task is to turn it into a good novel, which is a different adventure.