If you have any doubt that National Novel Writing Month can work, talk to Erin Morgenstern.

The author of the celebrated The Night Circus began the book one November as her NaNoWriMo (as it’s commonly called) project. Does your future bestseller await you this month?

I’ve not fully participated in NaNoWriMo before, though I have on occasion used that time to work on my memoir. It was nice to know that so many others were writing at the same time, and it gave me a little push to sit in front of the computer when maybe I otherwise would not have. But I have never met the stated goal of writing 50,000 words during the month, mostly because I was never working on anything new and was always in the revising stage.

This month I’m going to do things a little differently, thanks to the fine folks at the Marylhurst English and Digital Humanities program.

They are calling November “Digital Writing Month” (or, #digiwrimo). In short, the idea is that we do all sorts of different writing in a given day. Most of that writing is digital—blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates and comments, emails, text messages, etc. So why not count that writing?

I plan to do a little bit of both each day in November—both digital writing and traditional writing. The point being, I want to write every day. So if it’s a blog post and not the beginning of an essay, it counts. If it’s a carefully worded email to a friend or acquaintance, it counts. I’m going to count my tweets and my Facebook updates and comments. It’s all writing—it all relates.

I would have to aim between 1,600-1,700 words a day to meet the 50,000-word goal at the end of the month. I don’t think that will happen, but I will try. But if I write something every day, I will be happy.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo, in some form or fashion?