I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo which sounds kind of like a zippy anime character). It means writing a 175 page (50,000 word) novel between November 1st and November 30, 2004.

From the NaNoWriMo FAQ:

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and 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.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

This works out to around 6.5 double-spaced pages per day. Which is not all that much (my smallest assignments for school run 2 pages and I have to worry about them being good).

On a side note: it's Halloween Vest Day here at work. One woman has a vest with cartoon ghosts, witches, etc. On the back is a cartoon haunted house and, along the bottom, right above her butt it says "Do you dare to enter?"