I'm not doing it this year, but I did it several years ago and got one of my first freelance writing gigs reviewing my own NaNoWriMo novel.

I don't think I could ever do that again. The grind just about killed me, and it took me years to undo the damage it did to my writing process (not trying to talk you out of it, just saying that it really didn't work for me).

Four goes was enough for me. Though I suppose I could just use my collected metafilter comments for November as a sort of bizarre epistolary. Not sure it'd quite crack 50K words, though. I'm only a bit over a half million total since I joined in 01.

For what it's worth, I've had a lot of fun every time, even though I've also been incredibly frustrated and frazzled every time as well, and only actually hit the goal once (though I got about 32K on my most recent effort).

Also, I'm not a professional writer in any capacity, so I don't have to worry so much about damage done. Heh.

November seems like a really bad month to have this thing. If you're in school, then you probably have finals/projects at the end of the month or at least in the first week of December. And if you are in the US, you have a big holiday weekend right at the end when you are usually obligated to spending time with family and not locked in your room writing.

Agreed, octothorpe. I tried it in 2005 and gave up around the 20th due to holiday crapola. I wish it were in July or something, but there's something kind of fun about knowing there are loads of other crazies out there.

I think they should do January. Up here in the frozen wastelands, at least, there's nothing else going on and a month of keyboard masochism might actually be an improvement. Things aren't really cold enough yet in November for it to feel that way.

I've never found this much of a motivator. Signed up twice. Didn't do much. I wrote plenty more in between.

Jan would be better!