The Controversial Decent of NaNoWriMo

 

I’ve always loved the idea of National Novel Writing Month, which occurs in November every year. During this month, millions of writers worldwide write a fifty-thousand-word novel and upload it to NaNoWriMo to earn a certificate of achievement. In its early days, I signed up for two years running to write a novel. 

I finished my first novel (Playing For Real) in the 30-day window, but sadly, the second one I only half finished and cheated by copying and pasting it all back in so that I reached the required 50K word count. But I did finish it after that.

So it’s sad that after more than 20 years, NaNoWriMo is closing down and that the whole thing is shrouded in controversy. 

They began in 1999 and in 2006 became a non-profit. The closure is said to be for  “financial” reasons, according to the interim executive director, Kilby Blades.

In November 2023 complaints from members were made that a NaNo forum moderator was grooming children on a different website. The moderator was eventually removed a few weeks later for what was said to be an unrelated code of conduct violation. But the whole thing left a bad taste with many writers who questioned NaNo’s capability of keeping children safe on their site.

Then in 2024, when that year’s November novel writing month was announced, NaNo said that they would accept entries from novels written using AI. They were immediately criticised for it but they didn’t back down and stated that “condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones.”

At the time, fantasy writer, C L Polk responded that “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.”

The AI controversy received wide press coverage with NaNo standing their ground. Two authors stepped down from the NaNo board while many other writers spoke out against using bots in novel writing.

NaNo’s continual endorsement of AI in writing led to one of the world’s biggest backlashes against a non-profit.

Writers swiftly began to distance themselves from NaNo en-mass. Author Daniel José Older released a statement on his website stating that NaNo’s “position on AI is vile, craven, and unconscionable.”

Writers took to social media in droves, expressing their disgust at NaNo for endorsing AI software that is well-known for plagiarising authors’ work for training purposes, and that AI also spreads misinformation.

Many writers then began closing their accounts with NaNo to the point that the non-profit could no longer sustain itself and announced that it would close its website once all writers have had a chance to remove their work. To date, NaNo has not announced exactly when the closure will be.

The whole thing is sad because millions of writers have been able to get their novels written every November thanks to NaNoWriMo.

But that doesn’t have to stop. Any month can be the month that you get your book written. Just begin at midnight on the first of the month, and complete your first draft by midnight on the 30th.

And if you need help getting started, download The One Month Author and write your novel in a month, writing for just one hour a day.

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCWS4.html