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This week's Write Space by Jenny Argante.

In a favourite cartoon of mine, a radiologist X-rays a patient. 'No,” he says, 'there's definitely no book in you.” In spite of the evidence many of us think there is. Few of us get serious and do something about it.

Virginia Woolf reckoned it was ‘the critic in the corner' who stopped you from producing.

What you put down on the page had to be good enough to justify the time and energy spent on it.

Literary writing teaches us to write consciously and conscientiously. It's a triumphant morning when we produce one perfect sentence.

There's another approach that might suit you better. Shoot that critic in the corner and just get on with writing.

It's the first draft that matters. Bums on chairs. Words on pages. You can always go back and rethink, revise, rewrite. This seat-of-the pants method is endorsed by National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo - which begins on the first of next month?

The goal? Write a 50,000 word novel by midnight on 30th November. That's about 175 pages. Whew!

Writing at speed puts enthusiasm and perseverance ahead of painstaking craft.

Craft is no good without the enthusiasm to engage with the project, and the perseverance to keep going.

Because the ‘window of opportunity' is limited, the only thing that matters is output. Quantity, not quality. You're forced to lower expectations, take risks and write on the fly.

Make no mistake. Much of it will be crap, and that's no bad thing.

Being forced to write intensely means you can make mistakes.

Forgo the endless tweaking and editing and simply create. Build something up without tearing it down.

And, all around the world, other NaNoWriMo maniacs will be sharing the joys and sorrows of writing the Great Frantic Novel.

They'll commiserate with you, spur you on, and—when the thing is done—celebrate with you.

Last year, over 200,000 nouveau novelists signed up.

Over 30,000 crossed the finishing line by the deadline and entered the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever.

No longer car mechanics, out-of-work actors or pining English teachers, they were now authors!

Here's a recap if you want to join them:

What? Write a 50,000-word novel from scratch in one month.

Who? You!

Why? How many reasons do you want? To write without obsessing over quality. To make obscure references to our work in progress at parties. To mock real writers who dawdle on, waiting for a fickle muse, while we rolled up our sleeves and got the job done.

When? Sign up now to add your name to the roster. Writing begins at one minute past midnight on 1st November. You'll be added to the official list of winners if you reach that 50K word marker by midnight on 30th November.

Still pondering? Get over yourself. Find out everything you ever wanted to know about writing a novel in 30 days at http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and let the wild revels begin.