Come Fall, prospering and likely perspiring writers everywhere must decide whether or not they shall don their armor and face the petrifying beast known as NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month, a nonprofit organization, encourages people to indulge their productive impulses and tell a story. First, authors are asked to create a profile on the NaNoWriMo website and announce their novel with a temporary title and synopsis. With resources provided by the site, writers are encouraged to brainstorm ideas for their story before they start. Then, there’s the hard part; throughout the entire month of November, authors are required to write a novel that reaches the minimum of 50,000 words.

Predictably, there are those who object to this mountainous undertaking. The most common (and obvious) reason being that it is no easy task. The average student would have to write about 44 pages a week in order to meet the goal, when most struggle to finish a 10 page essay in that same amount of time. The majority of the people who take the time to sign up on the website never even finish. Some critics of NaNoWriMo believe that the 50,000 word minimum is, quite simply, insurmountable. They have numbers on their side, too; only about 11% of their 2016 participants finished their novels. There are also those who believe that the very purpose of NaNoWriMo is offensive to career novelists, that the organization attempts to diminish their craft into a mere race to be run, insisting that only true authors have the ability to write a novel.

However, NaNoWriMo itself emphasizes the inclusivity of its goal. The organization maintains that anyone can and should achieve their goal. Their site states that every year, people go into the month of November as mechanics, actors and teachers and come out of it as novelists. In their 2016 survey, almost 90% of respondents said that NaNoWriMo helped them exercise perseverance and change their outlook on writing for the better.

So, according to the organization, there are clear benefits to completing the task. Potential participants will have to choose whether or not they are willing to sacrifice the time and resources necessary to achieve that end product. However, days into November, some may think it’s too late to make that choice. But there’s still time to sign up, so if you think you can slay this dragon with dramatic haste, start your novel today.