'Tis the Season for Writing

A number of members from my writers group are participating in this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). If you haven't heard of NaNoWriMo before, participants aim to write 50 thousand words in the month of November, the idea being that a time frame forces you be consistent in your writing practice and can help you get the novel onto paper.

The local literary group where I live, Stories in the North, is hosting a number of writing events in November as part of NaNoWriMo.  This includes a kick-off party, 'write-ins' around town and a wrap up event.  Many of the write-ins take place while I'm at work, but I love the idea of bringing the local writing community together and creating positive communal work spaces.

In the academic world Charlotte Frost recently announced AcWriMo (academic writing month) and is encouraging academics to tackle their own writing goals.  Check out her announcement to see the full 'rules' and details.  Participants are encouraged to post their goals, efforts and results using the #AcWriMo hashtag.  
I've been struggling with the concept of NaNoWriMo -- mainly because I'm realistic about how much time I can feasibly devote to writing each day.  I also have a lot of non-novel related writing that I would like to spend more time on.  AcWriMo seems like a good fit for my current goals and schedule.

What do I want to accomplish as part of AcWriMo?

• Spend at least an hour a day on writing. 
• I'm going to say that blog writing can count toward this time.
• Have finished drafts of two articles I've been pushing to the back-burner for ages.   
• One article is a short 3,000 word case study, so seeing that article in polished form and ready for critique would be nice. 
• The other article needs a bit more research love.  Having a workable draft by the end of the month or a near to finished draft of this article, would be ideal. 

Are you participating in any form of NaNoWriMo? How do you stay on top of your writing goals?