A few of you may have noticed a strange acronym that keeps popping up on the 'nets lately: NaNoWriMo. It stands for "National Novel Writing Month," and it's a good excuse for all you closet and not-so-closet writers to let your inner Dickens out.

The premise is simple: write a 50,000-word, 175-page novel from Nov. 1st to the 30th.

In the words of my favorite high school English teacher, Mrs. Jones, there are two types of writers out there. There are the "bleeders," who tend to write and write, with a bit of editing while they go, but mostly just letting their words spill onto the page, uninhibited. Then there are the "ekers," who agonize over every phrase, planning and plotting the whole way, seeking perfection before anyone else can skim the masterpiece.

NaNoWriMo is an ingenious way to force everyone into bleeder status, if only for a month.

As their Web site explains:

The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

And with the advent of the blogosphere, it's never been easier to metaphorically put pen to paper. With sites such as livejournal, blogger and tumblr  -- to name a very few -- you can create a free Web site and a fanbase the same day you write your first sentence.

So this month, I encourage you -- get out and write!