“NaNoWriMo” is taking over my life. No, you do not pronounce this strange acronym like I imagined when I first heard it, as “nano-rhino,” conjuring images of a tiny version of the horned African behemoth.

It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Celebrated in November, it shares the calendar with Sleep Comfort, Native American Heritage, Peanut Butter Lovers, Model Railroads, Aviation History, International Drums and Child Safety Protection months.

An organization called The Office of Letters and Light sponsors the NaNoWriMo main event, which it calls “thirty days and nights of literary abandon.” This translates to: “write a 50,000-word (or longer) novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30; start from scratch; be the sole author; and write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.” The final rule requires you to upload your novel to check the accuracy of your word count.

I’m taking the popular fiction writing course this school year through the University of Washington’s Writers’ Certificate Program. Two of my classmates convinced me to engage not only in “literary abandon,” but also to abandon my sanity, free time, social life, and friends for 30 days so that I would begin December with the first-draft of a novel. No matter how awful that first draft turned out, the reasoning went, I would have taken a great leap forward toward a creditable manuscript by the last day of class in June.

So far I’ve enjoyed the process of letting my imagination take me where it will, but I expect to have a bigger celebration Nov. 30 than on Thanksgiving Day.

Note to friends who live nearby: November could also be National Take a Meal to a Friend’s Spouse Month, or Stop By to Remind a Friend to Take a Shower Month.

Ann Oxrieder has lived in Bellevue for 35 years.  She retired after 25 years as an administrator in the Bellevue School District and now blogs about retirement at http://stillalife.wordpress.com/.