Just two more days. I've got everything I need. I can't wait for it to begin.

No, I'm not talking about the impending Halloween Dance, although that ought to be fun as well. Not only is Nov. 1 All Saint's Day and the day when kids around the country get sick after eating too much Halloween candy, it's also the first day of National Novel Writing Month.

Participants in NaNoWriMo (as it has been affectionally abbreviated) have just 30 days to write 50,000 words. That's approximately 1,667 words per day, on average, or about five word-processed pages, which is an awful lot of writing.

With such a short timespan to write, naturally your final product is not going to be The Next Great American Novel. Many NaNoWriMo authors have gotten their books published, though, and one even became a New York Times bestseller. Even if you don't get anything out of it, NaNoWriMo is still worthwhile.

As the Web site says, "Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved."

For a lot of people, me included, writing a novel is something they'd like to do "someday," which means it never actually happens. Hopefully, by midnight on Nov. 30, I'll have changed that.

There are no prizes for "winning" NaNoWriMo, other than a fancy online certificate and the feeling of satisfaction that goes along with being able to attend stuffy cocktail parties and being able to introduce yourself as "the novelist." It's an obscene amount of writing and a lot of used-up time, but at the end you should have something you can be proud of.

Last year I attempted to complete NaNoWriMo, but alas, I gave up after only 7,000 words. I wasn't alone — out of more than 100,000 signed-up participants, only 15,333 finished their novel.

But don't let the statistics daunt you. If you're interested in writing at all, give NaNoWriMo a try. Linda Song did, and she succeeded in finishing her novel last year when she was a Uni senior.

If you need yet another reason to temporarily let loose of your sanity for a month, check out this quote from the creators of the tradition: "The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that."