National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel during the thirty days of November.

Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand-new novel. You may know this mass creative explosion by the name National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo—but that's not all that NaNoWriMo is!

NaNoWriMo is a nonprofit organization that supports writing fluency and education. But it's also a social network for writers like LinkedIn is for job professionals, or DeviantArt is for artists, or Facebook is for moms whose kids accept their friend requests only to provide them with "limited profile" access. It tracks words for writers like Fitbit tracks steps for the ambulatory. It's a real-world event, during which 900+ volunteers in places like Mexico City, Seoul, and Milwaukee coordinate communal writing sessions in thousands of partnering libraries, coffee shops, and community centers like… well, like nothing else.

It's internet-famous. It's a community-powered fandom (before there was the Beyhive, or Nerdfighters, there were Wrimos). It's a start-up incubator for novels (books like Water for Elephants, Fangirl, and WOOL began as rough drafts in November!). It's a teaching tool, it's a curriculum, and its programs run year-round.

Whatever you thought NaNoWriMo was, it is more than that.