Backstory: Write a book in 30 days? What a novel idea.

Dawn O'Bryan, an empty nester who lives in Silicon Valley, found a method in the madness. Taking advantage of her free time, she churned out 50,308 words in 18 days. "NaNoWriMo gave me a great incentive to face daily writing goals and make a habit of them," she says.

Similarly, Sarah Jane Sprouse, a college student in Richmond, Va., has reached the 50,000-word mark five times – including this year with a novel she's named "Modern Dialect." Still, it wasn't easy. Ms. Sprouse wrote a senior thesis during the same month and also struggled with the Scottish dialect required for her Glasgow-based novel. "I make an effort to do it every year because it's fun and a great exercise for my writing skills," she says. "At the end of each NaNoWriMo, I have a new (albeit very rough) manuscript to work with."

Among the mix of veterans and published authors, there are just as many first-timers who've never put pen to paper. Dantrel Robinson, a marketing executive at The Coca-Cola Company, wrote most of his novel while traveling between Alabama and Houston for business. He ended up with 50,867 words and a new sense of discipline. "I wrote half the novel in my hotel room," he says. "There will always be distractions. You just have to really commit – not answer the phone or respond to that e-mail."

Atwood, for her part, made good progress on her novel, which isn't exactly serious fiction. Set in nearby New Orleans, it begins with a rollicking car chase and shifts into gear with a gun-toting immortal bent on saving the world while hiring a personal assistant to schedule appointments and tote AK-47s.

***

In the end, that's the point of the exercise – just to write. This isn't Henry James. Indeed, Dwight Eddins, an English professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, who has spent 40 years teaching students to appreciate Yeats, as well as James, believes the content is not as important as the act itself. "I'm more or less skeptical about the results, but what's to be lost [by doing it]?" asks Dr. Eddins.

Granted, there are ups and downs. From the time commitment – most participants shoot for 1,500 words a day – to the physical demands, some find NaNoWriMo grueling. For Atwood, writing in the mall bookstore keeps her from feeling isolated, a complaint many writers voice. For Baty, the project founder, it offers an excuse to indulge in the temporary drama of a writer's life.

Still, beneath the farce lies a very real fact – NaNoWriMo renews a dream for many, and the deadline forces it into reality. Outside Atwood's temporary writing coop, Brenda Harris, a janitor at the Cortana Mall, harbors her own aspirations. Ms. Harris loves working at the shopping center, but admits she dreamed of writing a book when she was a teen.

Back then, she wanted to write a romance novel, but now she thinks she'd write about the plight of the world. Still, fear holds her back. "I wasn't that good at English," she confesses. "I figured I'd probably have to be a lot better at it."

As this year's NaNoWriMo draws to a close, my novel is stalled at 13,000 words and Beaty is stuck at 12,000. Atwood, along with 12,948 others, crossed the halcyon 50,000-word mark. The total word count comes to 982,564,701.

Back at my hotel, I wonder if Harris went home, sat down at the kitchen table, and began her novel on the back of an envelope. When we parted, she had said: "You know, I bet everybody's got a life story to write that would rock the world," and I had hugged her and replied, "You write yours – I'll look for it."

Lost in thought, I pick up the remote, then set it back down. November may be over, but someone's waiting for my story. Smiling, I open my laptop and begin to type.

Page: 1 | 2