For me it's the latter. November is Not Writing a Novel in a Month. How anybody can even contemplate this is a mystery to me. I have always presumed these intrepid writers send the kids to Grandma, take the month off work and train partners to do all the housework and shopping and keep the caffeine coming at regular intervals.
But then I discover that plenty of these NaNoWriMo writers do have other things to worry about; they get the kids to school and do the shopping and many of them go to work for at least some of the time. And they still manage to bang out over 1,000 words a day.
They must be super-organised. They have probably filled the freezer with nutritious brain food meals and have organised stocks and supplies for snacks so they don't need an emergency trip to the supermarket for teabags or light-bulbs half way through chapter 3. Perhaps friends and grand-parents have been roped in to do a bit of childminding, but even so many writers are balancing on a tightrope between life and writing. They have my admiration and I wish them all success.
So, while I may not have aspirations to write a novel during November, I have set myself the goal of writing a short story in the next month Not 50,000 words, 2,000 will do so that's 66.6 (recurring) words a day. Should be easy peasy. Except I'm taking ages to navigate my way round a new keyboard, to say nothing of Windows 8, which I didn't even know existed until 2 days ago, and Word 2013 (which will be out if date in 2 months' time). So it might have to be a very short story.
There's also a pile of washing, another of ironing and a fair bit of dust but I bet even NaNoWriMo writers don't do that, do they?