Nike ran an ad in the mid-nineties with the slogan, “You either ran today or you didn’t.” I was training for a marathon and taped the ad to the wall of my office. I used it as the measure of my success: Had I pulled myself out of bed an hour early and pounded the pavement, or had I slept in? Not how fast or how well had I run. Just: Had I done it?

The 150,000 writers participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) are challenging themselves to write a 50,000-word novel in a month, a pace of 1667 words a day. I think Salon.com’s recent anti-NaNoWriMo column misses the point. The first step for novelists is to get what is inside them out. To be followed — of course! — by copious amounts of editing and re-writing.

I’ve run three marathons and written one novel. For both endeavors, getting to the finish line is solely about discipline and desire. Did I make the Olympics or the NYT best-seller list? No, far from it. But I made myself into a runner, and a writer.

Ignore the naysayers, Team NaNoWriMo. You either wrote 1,667 words today or you didn’t. Tape that to your wall.