50,000 words in 30 days. The task seems daunting, and in all actuality, it might be.

Nov. 1 marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month — a trying 30-day period which pushes its participants to write one whole novel in the span of a month.

About a month ago, I made the decision to get back into writing fiction (for fun and games). Writing fiction has been a hobby of mine for as long as I can remember, and it is something I truly enjoy. I then walked into work one day and informed the necessary individuals that I wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.

At the moment, I don’t have all the exact story details worked out. I keep changing my mind in regards to the actual plot. I do know, however, that it is going to be some sort of romance.

The expectation of the month-long activity itself is to simply see if participants write the novel in a month. There is no pressure, aside from what you put on yourself, to succeed. As such, I will be setting a few extra rules in place for myself.

RULE 1: Look for a personal update of my writing ventures throughout the month of November. I’ll share what my progress is, how many words I wrote each week, what days I slacked, etc.

RULE 2: I’m setting a daily minimum for myself. In order to complete this task, I need to write around 1500 words a day. So that is what I will be working towards: 1500 words a day.

RULE 3: I can not let any of my school work slip throughout this process. I’m not really sure how this is going to work out, but I know that sometimes things don’t work out how they should, and suddenly everything is a disaster. The semester is almost over and I can’t let this goal interfere with my larger academic goal.

I am slightly concerned that I won’t be able to do this, but on the other hand, this is something I want to see myself complete.

In the meantime, I have 1500 words to write before tomorrow. Hopefully by the time I write again, in a week I will have 10,500 words (as per rule number 2).

Until then.

Follow Ariella Noth on Twitter.