Gareth Vieira
Special to the Et Cetera

Humber journalism student Tabitha Venasse met the challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days for the National Novel Writing Month.
“You start the novel on Nov. 1 at midnight and finish it Nov. 30 at 11:59 p.m.,” Venasse said.
The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a program that inspires people to write without inhibitions.
The program website said the only thing that matters is the output. It said the kamikaze approach forces writers to lower their expectations, take risks and write on the fly.
Winners are chosen in each area of the world and given a "Winner" web icon on the website and a certificate.
Venasse’s novel is an action-adventure about a female assassin living in Toronto who is hired to kill an ex-president.
“I tend to focus on sci-fi, action and fantasy genres,” she said.
Venasse has been writing in one form or another since she was young.

“She is a strong writer and shows a lot of determination.” - Judy Charles, broadcast journalism professor

She first started writing poetry when she was seven and then moved on to short stories at school.
“My teacher had a laptop, and when I finished my assignments she would let me use it to write my stories,” Venasse said.
By the time she was in eighth grade, she knew that she wanted to be a writer. By the end of her high school years, she had chosen journalism.
“If I pursue a career as a novelist it would destroy my passion,” said Venasse. “I decided if I wanted to keep writing journalism was the way to go.”
Judy Charles, one of Venasse’s teachers at Humber, had only praise for her.
“Tabitha is a great young woman. She thinks creatively and isn’t afraid to try new things. She is a strong writer and shows a lot of determination,” Charles said.
At any given time Venasse has twenty different stories on the go and she is always writing down her ideas.
“I found the best way to keep myself inspired is to keep them all going at once, so that if I lose the inspiration on one I gain it on another one,” she said.
This year, 1,187,931,929 words were written during NaNoWriMo and $251,956 were raised by the challenge’s writers towards the education of young writers.
Seattle, Washington was declared the wordiest city in this year’s contest by having the most writers.