At least Chris Bay thinks so in his new handbook, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. Bay tells us in the opening pages of his treatise that he once believed that you needed several things to start writing a novel in descending order of importance: lots of coffee, plot, character, and setting.  But Bay now thinks this is all wrong.  All you really need is one thing: a good deadline.   Because many people are bad keeping deadlines without external help, Chris has even organized an annual event, the National Novel Writing Month.  Last year 60,000 aspiring novelist participated. Some of the novels produced in this speedy fashion were already published by reputable houses. The novel writing month is scheduled again for this November.  What are you waiting for?