What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month happens every November! It's a fun, seat-of-your-pants writing event where the challenge is to complete an entire novel in just 30 days. For one month, you get to lock away your inner editor, let your imagination take over, and just create!
That means participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but the Young Writers Program (YWP) allows 17-and-under participants to set reasonable, yet challenging, individual word-count goals.
In 2011, 250,000 adults participated through our main site, and 50,000 young writers participated through the YWP.

Some of the skills NaNoWriMo builds:

• Fluency:
 Writing so much in so little time boosts students’ proficiency in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and will help them approach future writing assignments with ease and confidence.

• Confidence:
 When creating so much text in such a short period of time, students realize just how much they can accomplish when they put their minds to it. NaNoWriMo leaves young writers asking themselves, “What’s next?”

• Creativity:
 Creating characters, situations, dialogue, and even whole planets from scratch helps kids think, but it also teaches them how to apply their fanciful ideas to a full project.

• Time Management:
 Our curriculum teaches students how to tackle a huge project by breaking it down into manageable bites!

http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/