So twitter limits you to a pithy 140 characters and Facebook keeps you in a 420 character pen for status updates (for a reason I’m still unsure of). But what about 50,000 words? Think you could write that? Go ahead and start, we’ll give you a month.

I’m referring to what is affectionately called “NaNoWriMo” or, National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November, where a heap of unbalanced humans attempt to keep normal lives while banging out 50k words in an attempt to write an entire novel of some distinguishable size.

I bring it up here because while the effort itself is not explicitly tied to social media, the social component that is not only possible but encouraged has taken many social networks by storm.

Take Twitter for example, with a search for the hashtag #NaNoWriMo.

urbanpar: It takes 10,000 hours of practicing before you become a master at anything. #amwriting #nanowrimo. So I’ll be great at 30?

iAMSAMmet: Hit 27k! And still writing! Finally getting back my inspiration and it’s feeling great! My best chapter so far. #nanowrimo

kerstyn_leigh: Managed to write a few hundred words while still taking notes and listening attentively. I’m getting better at this. #nanowrimo

The main website has some nice social tools, from old-fashioned message boards to author friending, wordcount meters and more.

NaNoWriMo writers end up using all kinds of apps. I use My Writing Nook which keeps my novel in the cloud and lets me write on it via web or iPhone.

It’s just funny, that in this era of an economy of letters, numbers and symbols, when I’m stripping sentences down to some ur’s, OMG’s, and w/’s , there are arguably more long-form writers than ever, producing sizable work. And more to the point, they’re using social media to take breaks and communicate their experiences in writing, producing thousands of Tweets a day in between thousands of chapters.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

P.S. My profile on NaNoWriMo is here, with my novel falling way behind in word count (let’s blame Feedback’s exciting start and work). I’m writing a book of a story my 5 year old daughter and I came up with, so it’s a labor of love.