We are smack-dab in the middle of another No-Shave November and National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It’s a special time.

I usually forget about No-Shave November until right around this time each year, when men start to seem fuzzier than usual and it’s not because my glasses are smudged. I typically don’t notice NaNoWriMo until around November 29 each year, either. I always think, “Hmm. I should write a book,” but then I remember that I don’t have any ideas, I lack even the motivation to create an account on the NaNoWriMo website, and writing is haaaaaaard. So I move on and forget about it for the next 365 days.

NaNoWriMo, for the cool kids out there, is a challenge designed to motivate people to write a novel in a month. It’s not a long month — November only hath 30 days, if you’ll recall that dumb rhyme. The good news is, it’s not a long novel, either — the goal is 50,000 words which is apparently the approximate length of “The Great Gatsby”

Continue reading →