Concurrent with the addition of an extra hour to the clock, the fast-paced creative writing event known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began on Nov. 1.

“I love NaNoWriMo because it gives me a goal to complete,” Hannah Canter ‘16 said. “It’s hard during school to just sit down and write, but when there is a goal for me to accomplish, the 50,000 words in one month, it inspires me to write and try to win.”

The event, which began in July 1999 as a small gathering of 21 amateur novelists in the San Francisco Bay Area, grew into an international challenge for creative writers to set personal word count goals and meet them by the end of the month. NaNoWriMo includes nonprofit programs such as Camp NaNoWriMo, the Young Writers Program, Come Write In, and the “Now What?” Months, as well as dozens of pep talks and inspirational encouragement to participants on its website. More than 325,000 participants completed the program last year, and over 250 NaNoWriMo novels have been published, including well-loved young adult novels such as Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl and Marissa Meyer’s Cinder.