Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Why in the heck would you write 50,000 words in one month? There are so many good reasons, and I surfed the Internets and asked our readers why they will undertake this wacky task.

Tomorrow is the first day of "National Novel Writing Month" (NaNoWriMo), an annual international writing marathon staged on the Internet. Thousands of writers have already signed up for this mind-boggling contest, and these are a couple inspiring reasons why:

Novelist J.A. Konrath is leading the pack, struggling to complete 50,000 words in 24 days--if completed, this will be the seventh book in the his Jack Daniels crime series.

Jodi Vander Molen is going to write because she was inspired, no joke, by The Publishing Spot. She writes about her family, "They tell me that instead of focusing on what I didn't do, I should focus on what I want to do ... They both tell me to not worry about writing anything good, to think about the process, like Manny hitting baseballs for hours on end."

The Writing Geek hopes to expand on a few short story ideas and Monica Flores has the most practical reason: "I'm joining for the first time this year because I need the looming threat of a deadline to actually make me finish this piece." No matter why you are doing NaNoWriMo this year, welcome to our site--now tell us why you write.