This week’s column is written by our Assistant Innkeeper and Event Planner, Dina Musaelyan.

Many people love the fall season. The leaves are changing, the weather gets cooler, pumpkin spice lattes are back, and the holidays are on their way. For me, there is another reason to get excited: it’s NaNoWriMo time.

What’s NaNoWriMo? It is National Novel Writing Month, a program designed to empower and encourage writing and vibrant creativity around the world. In short, it turns the month of November into a productive time for aspiring and established writers alike to sit down and write a novel. Or as close to a novel as they can get.

This will be my third year writing a novel, and I have a goal of getting to 50,000 words. Last year was 38,000 words, and the year before that was, well pretty pitiful. However, this year I will meet my goal, and all because there won’t be internet, TV, or Facebook to distract me. Every time I tried to write before, I would get onto Facebook and 4 hours later, I had not written a word and it was time for me to go to bed. This year, I am at Ravenwood Castle. This year, there won’t be internet or Facebook to take me away from my goal. This year, I will write a novel.

So as November approaches, I challenge all of you reading this who aspire to write a novel one day. Come join me. Come visit me in the castle. Come have a drink with me. Come write with me.

Together we can make our NaNoWriMo goals come true. Together we can write, write, write in peace and quiet, without the outside world’s distractions.

For more information about NaNoWriMo, visit https://nanowrimo.org.

Ravenwood Castle