NaNoWriMo, the organization behind National Novel Writing Month, seems to be writing its own grave lately.
There has already been a grim shadow looming over the organization since the forums scandal of 2023, but a recent statement from NaNoWriMo HQ regarding the use of AI in the writing process has been one of if not the last nails in its coffin.
The conversations I've seen online have ranged from debate and vexation to bitterness and deletion of accounts. But amid them, I've also noticed writers mourning the loss of the challenge; at the time of writing, NaNoWriMo seems to be pressing on for 2024 (which also happens to be its twenty-fifth anniversary), but many writers have decided to take a step back from the event and not participate going forward which, for some, is a decision accompanied by grief.
Since 1999, NaNoWriMo has been a source of motivation and community for writers of every level. Over the past few days, several posted about how participating in the challenge helped them rediscover their love of writing or kickstarted a WIP they've since polished up and published. But these sentiments feel like eulogies in a way. A farewell to what was and the end of a chapter in their writing journey.
I have thoughts of my own, more than I can coherently post in a few words on social media. So, here we are.
This post is going to be one of those rambling thought dumps. A stream of consciousness spilling onto the page.
Let's talk about NaNoWriMo, why I'm abstaining, and what I'll be doing this November instead.
What Is NaNoWriMo?
National Novel Writing Month, commonly abbreviated as NaNoWriMo, is a challenge taking place every November during which participants aim to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. This adds up to about 1,667 words daily.
Those taking up the challenge year after year praised the sense of camaraderie that came with it. It offered a chance to connect with other writers working towards a common goal, something that can be especially appealing since writing can often feel lonely. It could also be a chance to try something new, whether it was their first time ever writing a novel, starting on a new story idea that had been curled up in the back of their mind, or testing out a new writing routine to meet the word count goal. And for some, the habits built during November carried into December and beyond.
What Happened?
The details of the situation are still emerging at the time of writing this post but, to quote Swoop, this is what we know.
In early September, NaNoWriMo posted a statement regarding their stance towards the use of AI—and it didn't take long to go viral.
In this upload, they state that NaNoWriMo, "does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI."
This may not sound too bad at first. After all, there's no one right way to write a novel. Some of us are Plotters who craft detailed outlines before starting a new WIP, others are Pantsers who find they write better when they can just dive right in and see where the story takes them or Plantsers who find themselves right in the middle. You might write your book in chronological order whereas someone else bounces around the story's timeline. I prefer handwritten first drafts, you may prefer typing everything up.
You get the idea.
As some have pointed out, NaNoWriMo didn't specify what kind of AI they see as permissible for writing. There's a difference between Alexa or Siri or AI tools that run spellchecks and generative AI that creates through theft.
MIT describes generative AI as, "a machine-learning model that is trained to create new data, rather than making a prediction about a specific dataset." But where does that data come from? Preexisting works, without consent.
To explain very briefly, the generative AI algorithm is trained by analyzing preexisting works, which it then takes and uses as a basis to generate new content.
Using AI to write an entire novel isn't actually writing a novel. And NaNoWriMo did admit that while it allows generative AI work towards word count goals, it kind of defeats the purpose of the challenge because you're not actually pushing yourself to write it. But they didn't outright say it's plagiarism, either.
The main issue was the reason given for not condemning AI. As they stated, "to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege."
This gets further broken down into three categories, which I'm including directly from the statement and in full to avoid anything getting taken out of context:
Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.
Ableism. Not all brains have same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers “should“ be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't "see" the issues in their writing without help.
General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don't always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.
Naturally, this wasn't received well by the writing community.
On Bluesky, author C.L. Polk posted, “NaNo is basically asserting that disabled people don't have what it takes to create art when they trot out the lie that scorning AI is ableist.” and added, “Saying that disabled people need unremarkable and unoriginal writing is a pile of horseshit.”
"I am someone who falls under the abelism issue for writing," Daniel Greene said in his YouTube video on the controversy. "I have one of the most common writing disabilities that millions of people around the world...face every day, and I don't want it erased by AI. I think the fact that I'm dyslexic, I worked extra hard to accommodate for it, makes my writing story somewhat more interesting, more human, more something people can look to."
Several writers with disabilities or chronic illnesses also shared insights into their routines and how they write without the use of generative AI.
Others expressed the sentiment that financial barriers do not preclude creativity altogether. You don't need to swipe your credit card like a match to spark an idea. Writing classes aren't mandatory. You don't need the newest tech or snazziest writing software to tell your story.
All you need to do is write.
While hiring "human help" as NaNoWriMo called it does come with a price tag, you'll find there are plenty of editors who can work with you to arrange a payment plan that works within your budget. Plus there are a ton of free resources to help you along the way thanks to the internet. You might even be able to find a writing group in your area or connect with fellow writers online to swap projects for feedback.
Not to mention a few of these generative AI programs come with fees to use their features so it's not exactly an entirely accessible option, either.
Additionally, writers using AI to write their novels are frankly missing out on the creative process and the fun of writing the novel yourself.
As far as the argument of AI being useful for minorities, we do need to have the conversation about marginalized communities and the publishing industry—slapping the AI band-aid on the problem doesn't solve it.
NaNoWriMo's 2023 Controversy
This isn't the first time that NaNoWriMo has found itself in hot water.
To briefly recap, a moderator of the forums was accused of exploiting minors through the Young Writers Progam. One user on Twitter/X, @ArumiKai, shared a thread that alleged the moderator in question funneled users from the program into a fetish site. When this was brought to the NaNoWriMo organization's attention, nothing appeared to happened. In response, participants took to the forums on the NaNoWriMo site, though some were allegedly banned for speaking out.
Users criticized the organization for a lack of communication and transparency during all of this and called for stricter forum moderation. The admin team issued statements addressing these concerns but, to a lot of participants, it felt too little. too late.
Eventually, the forums were shut down entirely by the NaNoWriMo Board of Directors, and a new age restriction was later put in place for the social features going forward.
This incident and NaNoWriMo's handling of it (or lack thereof) was one reason some writers had already distanced themselves from the organization or were debating whether or not they would participate in 2024.
And for many, the new AI controversy has only sealed the deal.
NaNoWriMo And Me
I don't have the longstanding with NaNoWriMo that a lot of writers do. I only participated in an official capacity once, in 2023, when I started the first draft of A Tided Love. Prior to that, I'd only ever done an unofficial version of Screnzy, a screenplay-centric take on NaNoWriMo, while in college.
As for 2024, I was still on the fence until recently. My NaNoWriMo experience wasn't terrible, but it wasn't phenomenal, either.
NaNoWriMo was more stressful for me than it was fun. In fact, I was already starting to feel burnt out even before November. Some of that was the result of poor planning on my part—more specifically, an overabundance of planning.
Since I wanted to feel like I had a good shot going into my first NaNoWriMo, I did my best to heed all of these Preptober guides as the NaNoWriMo gospel. I spent hours upon hours drafting a full-detailed chapter-by-chapter breakdown of A Tided Love because that's what was advised.
The thing is, that's not my usual approach to a first draft.
I'm a Plantser, in that group of writers that fall between the Plotters and the Pantsers of the world. Everyone has their own style when it comes to the planning phase of a novel. Prior to NaNoWriMo, I'd typically go in with a rough outline and see what direction my intuition took the story in as I wrote the first draft. Most of the time, I'd end up veering away from that original outline, anyhow, but it was for the best nine times out of ten.
However, since I was new to NaNoWriMo, I wanted to make sure I was doing it the "right" way. I diverged from my usual Plantser approach of a minimal outline and decided to dedicate part of Preptober to creating an in-depth outline for A Tided Love with a paragraphs-long breakdown of every chapter. Even though it was helpful to have that much established about my WIP going into NaNoWriMo, it also did a number on me. I was working on that outline up until the last possible moment; in my celebratory selfie of me and my laptop from that day, I'm wearing my Belle cosplay because it happened to be Halloween, aka the very last day before NaNoWriMo was to begin. It added a layer of stress to what can already be a stressful challenge and by the time NaNoWriMo officially kicked off, the feeling of burnout was already setting in.
Furthering the stress was an unexpected technical difficulty.
I had come home from an in-person writing event and went to upload what I had typed on my Neo2 to my computer, only to be met with an error message. Essentially, the memory was corrupted and I lost absolutely everything I had written. Cue the frantic rewrite to catch up.
Thinking it was a fluke, I proceeded to write with Mavis again the next day, only for the same thing to happen. And that's when the panic set in.
As it turns out, the AA batteries in the NEO2 only power the device. Its RAM requires a separate 2032 button battery, which had died.
Essentially, Mavis was braindead at the worst possible time.
One speedy trip to the hardware store to acquire the necessary replacement battery and tiny specialty screwdrivers later, I performed a quick dissection of sorts on Mavis to get her up and running again. I thankfully haven't had any issues with her since (and won't have to worry about the RAM battery for another 9-10 years), but NaNoWriMo was the absolute worst possible time for this to happen.
Truth be told, I think I would have hit the 50,000-word goal had I not been dealing with the unexpected technical blunder, but I wasn't enjoying the process nearly as much as I hoped. It stopped being fun.
As early as the following June, I was debating whether or not I would participate in NaNoWriMo 2024. I learned so much in the prior year not only about writing, but myself as a writer, and felt more ready to tackle the intensity of the challenge with that knowledge. Plus the majority of long-Covid symptoms I was dealing with throughout 2023 had subsided dramatically.
However, I was still unsure how I felt towards the organization after the forums incident. I was admittedly out of the loop and not following the situation too closely, but I was hoping things could be resolved and viewed as a regrettable learning experience going forward. The twenty-fifth anniversary semed like the perfect time to roll out a newly refreshed site with improved forums and new features, so I was trying to remain hopeful. A writing group I was part of during NaNoWriMo 2023 was also talking about getting back together to attempt the challenge in 2024.
That said, my schedule looks a little different now. I'm at a new job and have fun things going on like newly established DND nights with my work fam, so my writing often gets crammed into the nooks and crannies of my day (that's one of the reasons this post is going live a smidge later than I originally planned).
My plan would be to continue working on A Tided Love, as its plotline had since been reworked and the first draft in the process of being rewritten, but only aim for around 30K.
By September, I was in the process of trying to get more ahead on blog posts than usual like I did for 2023, just in case I decided to do NaNoWriMo. That way, if I did decide to participate in November, I would be able to focus my writing time entirely on A Tided Love.
But then came The Statement. Simply put, that was it.
What Now?
Even though many writers are distancing themselves from the organization behind NaNoWriMo, I don't want to completely discount the good that came out of it over the years. For many, it was the start of new friendships within the writing community, sparking or rekindling their love of writing, finding a writing routine that works for them, and realizing how resilient they are when faced with a challenge as intense as drafting 50,000 words in 30 days.
And as many has expressed, NaNoWriMo was the time they first started writing a novel they're continuing to work on or have since published.
I don't want us to dismiss these good things because bad things happened, and I think that's why I'm starting to see alternatives popping up in the days since that post went live.
This November, I'll be participating in BeNoWriMo, or Better Novel Writing Month, and hope to wrap up A Tided Love after substantially revamping its outline earlier this year and scrapping most of what I wrote back in NaNoWriMo.
Led by "mascot and menace" Beano (who honestly reminds me of our dearly missed bud Clippy in the best possible way), the challenge is about getting the words down, though not necessarily about the quantity of them.
As Beano said in this interview, "Beano doesn’t care if it’s 5 words or 50k words." Rather, it's just about getting in a steady writing habit and finding a supportive community.
Beano's Threads account has quickly become a favorite of mine. Though new to the platform, the vibe just feels better. I'm an "internet introvert" who struggles to put myself on social media, but Beano's space is so warm and encouraging.
When it comes to BeNoWriMo, the fact that you're writing is enough. And after a not-so-great NaNoWriMo experience, that is exactly what I need.
As this post draws to a close, I want to suggest that those who loved all of the good parts of NaNoWriMo and found value in the challenge continue with it outside of the organization if they so desire. Set your own goals and deadlines. Connect with writing friends. Form groups for accountability and motivation.
Just keep writing. In spite of it all. Keep writing.
Have you participated in NaNoWriMo before? Will you participate in it or an alternative novel-writing challenge this November? Let me know in the comments below!
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