Rainbow Rowell was skeptical about NaNoWriMo, which she viewed as something for “people who needed to be tricked into finishing their books.” But the idea of having a “pile of 50,000 words” appealed, and so she got to work on what would become Fangirl. She got halfway through a workable draft during her NaNo adventure, and spent the next year wrapping up the project.

Marissa Meyer wrote her bestselling Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress during NaNo madness. And not only did she win NaNo with her first draft of Cinder, she beat the 50K count by a longshot. “Oh, the crazy NaNoWriMo that was November 2008,” Meyer wrote on her website. “That year I decided to challenge myself and instead of writing the expected 50,000 words in 30 days, I wrote 150,000. (150,011 to be exact.)”

Before Murphy stole hearts with Dumplin’, she made a splash with her debut, Side Effects May Vary. The book was a NaNo accomplishment—and drafted during her first challenge. “Man, I love NaNo. To me, it’s the Ironman Triathalon of writing—but with more junk food provisions—because if you’ve completed it, you wear it as a badge of honor,” she said in a NaNo chat.

Way back in 2012, when author Sarah Ahiers was working on the draft of what would become her debut, Assassin’s Heart—pitched as Romeo & Juliet meets Game of Thrones—she was quite the NaNo vet, having done (and won) four.

Ryan’s debut, thriller The Forest of Hands And Teeth, has NaNo to thank for its existence. She never would have written it otherwise. Way back in 2006, struggling to figure out her next project, “I asked my husband, ‘What should I write?’ He said, ‘Write what you love.’ I said, ‘That would be the zombie apocalypse but NO ONE wants to read about that.’ He gave me that ‘you know I’m right’ look. He was right.”

Not quite ready? Dive in anyway. That’s the advice Stephanie Perkins—who wrote all three books in the Anna trilogy as NaNo projects—offers up.

Dahlia Adler has powered through NaNoWriMo to draft at least two of her books—her debut Behind the Scenes and its follow-up, Hollywood romance Under the Lights.