I'm a huge advocate of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Last year I wrote a 50,000 word rough draft of The Gate during the month of November.

What is NaNoWriMo?

From the NaNoWriMo website, the official description is:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.