As I’m writing this, I can feel it at the edge of my consciousness. Lurking in the shadows, reminding me of this pressing responsibility I signed up for. It’s NaNoWriMo, and it’s finally here.

For those of you unfamiliar with NaNo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it’s exactly as fun as it sounds. From November 1st to the 30th, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel. That’s approximately 1,666 words per day. The idea is that with a deadline and community support, writers will find encouragement to actually get something written. Thousands of writers sign up, not all of them make it through.

I was one who did not make the deadline last year. I actually gave up only a fifth of the way in, because I had other worries and honestly it wasn’t a top priority at the time. This year will be different—I hope.

First of all, I’ve had an entire year of writing growth since my last attempt. I’m a better writer stylistically and stamina wise. I’ve tried many different genres and styles of writing—from newspaper articles to short stories and poetry. I’ve done collaborations with other authors working on the same story as me. Heck, I signed up for Odyssey. If I can write a full length article each week, I can definitely write 1,666 words in a day.

Secondly, I know what to expect this time around. To one-year-ago-me, 1,666 words didn’t sound too bad. Eleven-months-ago-me realized that’s about three pages of a Word Document aka a lot more than I could write easily. Present-me scoffs at this number—three pages is a research paper that takes me an hour to write after doing all my research. Three pages comes a lot faster when all the sources I need are directly from my head.

Thirdly, I’m in a much different place in my life. I’m in no way unbusy, but I do have more free time as a freshman at college than a senior in high school. Much more of my life is spent writing for much longer periods of time versus when I had to write in brief snatches of time between school, extracurriculars, and homework. Granted, much of my writing now is for class, but I also have plenty of time and motivation to write for myself on top of that.

Finally, I have a much better topic to write about. Last year I tried to write a novel that I started in August but never got further than 1,000 words on before November. By the time I had to spend hours laboring over it, I was already bored with my plot. This year I’m starting fresh with an idea that is yet to bloom rather than one that withered and died long before November even started. Who knows, maybe this will be the deciding factor in the battle that is NaNoWriMo.