They also have challenges for screenplays, and a grab bag of prizes donated by various sponsors if you finish, which is a challenge, but not at all impossible, since the idea is to get words and ideas down on paper and save the editing for after the contest closes.

CreateSpace is offering five paperback copies of the finished novel (undoubtedly in hopes you'll buy more eventually), and there's a discount on several writing programmes, among which is Scrivener, which is very decent for the Mac. I enter every year, not that I ever publish what I've written, but I might this year. (I always say that...)

You have to do fifty thousand words, which is one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven words per day for thirty-one days, roughly five and a half typewritten pages a day in a normal font.

If you're a touch typist, and type thirty-five words per minute, that works out to about forty-eight minutes of straight typing each and every day of the month. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the key to success is not to get "anal" about the writing. Leave that for the rewrite and just pound on the keys. If monkeys can write all the plays of Shakespeare using this technique, almost anyone can write a novel.

There are also tricks that boost one's word count without much effort, such as spelling out each and every number under one hundred, which is a good idea in any case, and makes one's writing look more professional. I use a little tool for the Mac called Typinator with a set of macros that automatically expand arabic numbers into words, so I can type 99 and the application turns it into ninety-nine. Professionalism without tears. See my blog on numbers, if you'd like to learn more about what style books usually advise on using numbers. If you feel compelled to write "sesquipedalianism," write "likes to use big words" instead, five words for the price of one, and only a few more letters. Never back up to spell a word correctly, just plough on and let the letters fly where they may. Hide your dictionary, avoid making sure that your facts are right, and never bother about consistency. All that can be taken care of in the editorial and rewrite stage.