On Nov. 1, 100,000 people from 70 different countries looked at a blank page and saw 30 days and 50,000 words ahead of them.

With ideas swirling, these future novelists began to write.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, takes place each year during November. It’s a month of finding spare time to sit down and write, without editing.

The non-profit writing contest is free. The “winners,” those who finish their novels, receive the prize of a feeling of accomplishment after the month is over. They are also are added to the winner’s page, receiving a certificate and a Web icon.

At such a busy time of year, especially for students, with the close of the semester approaching, writing a novel in addition to normal activities and responsibilities is quite a bit of work.

Some find a relief in writing, “especially if you’re writing fiction,” said John V. Knapp, English professor and editor of the Journal of Style. “You escape into your fictional world and that world becomes as real as the world you breath and sleep in.”

Many writers find their own routine when writing.

Characters, plots and sub-plots will continue to run through the imaginations of NaNoWriMo participants until today at midnight, when pages are counted, stories are completed and all the writing comes to a halt.

“Good writing allows us to willfully turn away from so much of the empty, loud noise and distractions of the world, to linger in the imagination, which is such a humane gesture but which is increasingly undervalued,” said English instructor Joe Bonomo.

While some NaNoWriMo participants may go back and edit their novels once the month is over, others may choose to keep their novels as is.

“I always urge my students initially to draft without editing, to simply write toward a vague or a specific subject and to firmly believe that each sentence you write has the potential for an interesting digression,” Bonomo said. “But art is in the shaping, and the revision process is crucial, intuiting the differences between mere private expression and imaginative, personal exploration and, hopefully, discovery.”

Any way a writer goes about it, NaNoWriMo is a month of creative flourishing.

To all this year’s NaNoWriMo participants, good luck in finishing your novels. I hope your whimsical and adventurous tales come to their breathtaking conclusions.