By Aida Lashinsky, Reporter

November is just around the corner, and so is National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo for short. Each year during this month, hundreds of writers sign up on an online program and pledge to write a 50,000-word rough draft of a new novel.

Having a strict requirement of 50,000 words may seem like a lot, and the event focuses more on quantity rather than quality of the work. The main point of the challenge is just to get people started on their writing. NaNoWriMo wants it’s participants to create a big rough draft that they can edit down later.

Senior Leland Manuel believes that the contest needs to focus much more on quality.

“The quality is the most important thing,” says Manuel. “Quantity can be low. The quality, It’s like having a nice car and having a jalopy.”

To help deal with stress and writer’s block throughout the challenge, the NaNoWriMo website has forums for writers to talk and share tips. Best sellers such as Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Cinder by Marissa Meyer have been spurred on by the event, and more people join each year.

“It’s a lot but I guess if you’re into writing it’s probably a good idea,” said junior Melissa Mahoney. “Clearly there are some good writers doing it. It’s not impossible to do well just because of the word limit.”

There are no huge contests or prizes for completing the challenge, other than the satisfaction of finishing and being eligible to have two copies of the completed work published for free. After the month is over, editing begins and writers continue to keep in touch as they perfect their novels. Long scrolls of questions and debates over paragraph formatting, fonts, and character names begin to roll out. Writers grow in excitement over their budding works and the question starts popping up all over the site, could this be published?

“I think its’ a great idea for inspirational writers because if they come to write it shows how much compassion they have for it,” said freshman Brooklynn Martin. “That is a very good way for writers to get noticed by others and for them to get a career in writing.”

Inspired writers are getting ready with anticipation as the next NaNoWriMo rolls around, and people can wonder what new novels will be come out of this year’s event.