This is your last call to join National Novel Writing Month, which begins at midnight tonight. If you have never done NaNoWriMo, it’s like no other experience. You will discover creative talents you did not know existed.

Do you have time to devote to this project? No! So much the better. I think it almost works better when you’re under pressure. Anything that will let you ignore your internal editor and obsess over word count is a good thing in the NaNoWriMo universe.

I boasted early on that I was jumping back into the NaNoWriMo fray this year. I completed my 50,000-word novel in 2004, the first year I tried NaNoWriMo, but I failed in 2005 and had conflicts which kept me from participating in 2006.

Since committing, loudly and publicly, to the project — I havent checked yet, but think I’m probably included in today’s edition of the podcast — my work assignments have changed and I’m now doing considerably more at work. On paper, this looks like the absolute worst time to try to devote time every day to writing. But I’m excited about it anyway. (UPDATE: I am in the podcast, at about the 22-minute mark. You can listen to the podcast from the home page.)

Please consider trying this — and if you do try it, stick with it for at least a week or two. Sometimes it takes that long for you to truly turn off your censor and let the creativity flow.

You will, I guarantee, be surprised by some of the things you write by the end of the month. Yes, I know there are challenges that have to do with writing a blog post a day or what have you, but I think there’s something special about writing fiction and seeing your characters come to life right before your eyes. That’s the kind of creativity this thing unlocks.

Will you wind up with a finished, polished, marketable novel? Of course not — although you might be surprised at what you do end up with, and you can always go back and polish it later.

For those of you living right in Nashville, there will be gatherings and meet-ups at which you can encourage each other, even as you sit around with your laptops and start writing. That’s a little bit harder for me out in the hinterlands, but there’s plenty of encouragement and feedback to be had in the forums and features at the NaNoWriMo web site.

Try it. Please, just try it. What have you got to lose?