{photo: Charles Dickens at his writing desk, preparing to write out his next 50,000 word meal ticket.}

Thanks to Patrick Alan Coleman over at the Mercury, we here at PCS were recently alerted to the fact that November first is the official start of National Novel Writing Month. There’s a great organization by the same name who encourages people to type out a 50,000 word novel in exactly 30 days, and then upload it to their site in order to receive an official “winners” certificate. The key, they exhort, is quantity, not quality- word count word count word count.

It works out to about 4 pages a day. Totally doable.

So that got us thinking… You know who else was famous for his speed and word count? Mr. Charles Dickens, who started his career as a serial novelist for a newspaper and got paid by the word (kinda explains why a Tale of Two Cities just goes on and on and on and on, doesn’t it?)

In any case, our production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (adapted by our own in-house literary genius, Mead Hunter) will start just two days after National Novel Writing Month ends.

So, in honor of Dickens and his uncanny ability to crank out truly astonishing amounts of prose in very brief periods of time, we cordially invite you to join the National Novel Writing project and create a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. If you accomplish this astonishing feat, upload your completed novel to their website, and bring in the Winner’s Certificate they send you, we’ll reward you for your Dickensian act of creativity (and your family for their Dickensian act of patience in putting up with your pacing, typing, and perpetually ink stained fingers) by giving you a Family Four Pack of tickets to A Christmas Carol .

Need some potential topics for your novel? How about a Dickensian satire (Passion in the Poorhouse? A Tale of Two Americas)? or A Punk Rock Carol (about an ageing former punk star out of touch with his fan base)? Or, Boo who? A Backstage Ghost Story… (feel free to steal any one of these, we’ve got dozens more where that comes from).

Here’s where to find out all about National Novel Writing Month. Go!

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