November is National Novel Writing Month, and that's creative and wholesome and challenging and all that. If you have bookish/writerly/creative friends, your Facebook feed is surely scattered with people's NaNoWriMo progress. And great! Good for you, novel attempters. That is courageous.

But what if you nerd harder than that? Here's a new challenge I just found out about: National Novel Generating Month. It is apparently the idea of Darius Kazemi, who tweeted a new take on noveling. "Hey, who wants to join me in NaNoGenMo," he asked on the first of the month. "Spend the month writing code that generates a 50k word novel, share the novel & the code at the end."

It's been moving along nicely, with Kazemi posting a novel nearly right away. It begins like this:

School was in session and my friends Barb and Chrissy came to visit and give me a $150 check. Then Barb told me to call her that night. When they left it was raining. Our class was leaving somewhere (they were very excited) and some kids were going on these airplanes and some kids were going on buses, but the last 10 kids were going (on) gurneys even though they weren't hurt, and they were going on a bus.

I was at a sewing class and you picked out your design on the computer. The lady that was teaching us how to sew took me outside. We started running around the town. It was getting dark and I got scared that I would never see my parents again. But the lady brought me back to a room that my family was in.

I was in school and at a play. There were three new boys. The oldest one gave me presents. They kept coming out of this box. There was a witch. She locked the old one in a cage. Suddenly there was a gust of wind. I struggled for the key and unlocked it. Then I went to some movie with the 5th grade. I went down to sit. Some people sat five rows behind us.

Others already posted read more like this bit of technically grammar-ous, robot-Dick-and-Jane speak:

Alice went to the dining room. Alice saw the golden falcon. Bob went to the dining room. Bob saw the golden falcon. Bob saw Alice. Alice picked up the golden falcon. Alice went to the living room. Bob went to the kitchen. Alice went to the dining room. Bob went to the dining room. Bob saw Alice. Bob saw Alice was carrying something. Alice went to the living room. Bob went to the kitchen. Alice went to the dining room. Bob went to the dining room. Bob saw Alice. Bob saw Alice was carrying something. Alice went to the living room. Bob went to the kitchen.

I wouldn't read the whole thing, but it is fascinating to watch the logic work. More code-generated novels are right over here. Or check out the #NaNoGenMo hashtag on Twitter, where people are also discussing their progress. Some of them seem virtually indistinguishable from a certain kind of contemporary novel, à la Tao Lin. Others read remarkably like a sentient person's dream journal.

Now I have a creeping feeling that all Stranger staff will be replaced by bots within the year. I think I'm looking forward to early retirement; maybe then I can finally participate in NaNoWriMo.