You may think with a title like Novel Writing I'm going to talk about writing a book, alas, you would be wrong. Novel writing is a term my family has used for years to refer to something that people say they want to do, but don't actually ever attempt to do it.

My sister and I coined the term a number of years ago as an inside joke while talking about how we've always wanted to write a novel, but neither of us have done anything to, you know, actually write a novel. In this respect, really anything can be novel writing for you: those 10 pounds you've been meaning to lose, that iPhone game you've been meaning to build¹, or that startup idea you've bored all your friends with.

Basically, your desire to want to do something needs to be greater than your desire not to do it, otherwise you're just novel writing. So basically, no matter how much you talk about something, and how much you say you want to do something, if you never actually do anything to accomplish it, then you're just novel writing.

From An American in Paris (Chapter 2):

He had the itch to distinguish himself in the field of literature but was not quite sure of the form of the great work which he proposed to write.