I have a story to tell. The first year I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), 2006, I told a computer programmer friend of mine about the event. If you don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a seat-of-your-pants, self-motivated challenge where you write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. By writing 50,000 words, you become a NaNoWriMo “winner”. My programmer friend said she could write a script in a few minutes that would repeat a word 50,000 times, so would that make her a winner?

Um, no.

The purpose of NaNoWriMo is not just to write 50,000 words, but to write 50,000 words of a novel. Which makes it more than just words. During those 30 days of November you construct a plot, get to know characters, build a world, and thusly become imbued with creativity. Plus, you get to do all of that with millions of others.

I wrote this on my NaNoWriMo blog post in 2013:

I write the rough drafts of all my novels during NaNoWriMo. I find the “quantity not quality” aspect exhilarating. I find the forums and the personal interactions whilst volunteering for them to be encouraging. (Favorite story: during one of the first [the first? maybe; I’m not sure] Night of Writing Dangerously events I was stuck on a plot element in The General’s Wife. During a lull in activity, I asked my cohorts manning the registration table how I should approach this plot element. Seconds later — yes seconds! — I had my answer.) I find the bizarre magic that happens during November to spark the creative energy to answer all those nagging plot questions.

Unfortunately, that magic has died somewhat, and I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo 2024. Well, not officially, anyway.

So what happened?

The bolstering community has been suspended and writing with unfettered creativity is no longer a requirement.

It seems that NaNoWriMo has accepted artificial intelligence replacing both.

Artificial Intrusion

At least, NaNoWriMo is allowing the intrusion of artificial intelligence in their event. It is difficult at this point to link and quote from any official NaNoWriMo statement as they are being constantly re-written (or “updated”). However, this article from 2023 seems to be their final position with regards to AI (emphasis is mine):

The goal of participating in NaNoWriMo is to motivate yourself to write and give yourself space to develop your creativity. ‘Winning’ is a personal achievement and has always been based on the honor system! If using AI will assist your creative process, you are welcome to use it. Using ChatGPT to write your entire novel would defeat the purpose of the challenge, though.

In late August-early September 2024, NaNoWriMo made an official statement “our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.” The full statement was presciently screen grabbed by Cass Morris on her blog.

The writing community — including disabled writers, low-income writers, BIPOC writers, LGBTQ+ writers — excoriated NaNoWriMo on blogs and social media for using them as props supporting their untenable position on AI. After which, NaNoWriMo uploaded a flurry of “updates” for that particular statement. Apparently, the person who made the initial statement was an unpaid, overworked intern. This does not surprise me in the least. NaNoWriMo is notoriously underfunded and understaffed.

I am not opposed to using assistive technologies, such as speech-to-text, to capture one’s imagination and inspiration. I am, however, opposed to using generative AI for NaNoWriMo, including for story prompts, story ideas, story content, which, to me, is akin to a script repeating one word 50,000 times. Part of the magic of NaNoWriMo was the absolute immersion in the story in your head, how characters became real people, worlds became real places, and plots involving all of that unexpectedly unfolded. If you needed help, you engaged with people in the NaNoWriMo discussion forums, at the in-person events, and let everyone know it was November and they were happy to help you, their writer friend, if you got stuck.

But the discussion forums have been shut down and hosting official NaNoWriMo events has become difficult.

And that’s part of a different story.

The Grooming Incident

Lots of people are appalled that NaNoWriMo participants who are leaving in droves because of the AI controversy did not leave in droves after “the grooming incident”. In 2023, it was uncovered that a NaNoWriMo discussion forums moderator was allegedly luring minors to an off-site adult website. This moderator was not dealt with swiftly, but eventually was banned from NaNoWriMo. The whole incident is way more complicated than that but that’s the gist of it.

However, for those of us on the outside looking in, WriMos trying to write and merely watching from the forums, it was confusing and difficult to gain a sense of what was happening in real time. Other moderators were being removed or retiring from the forums for other reasons. The discussion forums were finally closed in the middle of November 2023, severing writers from their community. The forums remain closed as of this writing, late October 2024.

The organization now does background checks for forum moderators and Municipal Liaisons (MLs, the folks who run local events). That’s a good thing. However, the MLs now shoulder more personal liability, so many have left the organization, which means fewer in-person events in 2024.

NaNoNoMore?

Without the forums and without in-person events there is no longer any official NaNoWriMo community. One wonders if NaNoWriMo’s official stance allowing the use of artificial intelligence to “assist your creative process” — i.e., how WriMos used to use community — is seen by the organization as an adequate substitute?

I’m not really sure how this November will go. Last year I officially became a Rebel. I am currently working on edits for an earlier NaNoWriMo project, Book 3 of my American Revolutionary Tales series, which makes this year another NaNoWriMo Rebellion.

Next year? Who knows. NaNoWriMo is not just a personal creative challenge. It is a community. Getting that community back together will be a daunting task.

Will you be a 2024 WriMo? Want a writing prompt from me, a real-live writer? Here you go!
In 1999, in a world of unfettered creativity, a young man starts a challenge among his friends: write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Year after year, the circle of novel-writing-challenge friends grows, until 25 years later, there are millions of friends writing novels with creative abandon. That’s when an evil villain notices the writing challenge. He gets the idea to scrape all of those novels to fuel his artificial intelligence large language model, with the intent of profiting off the work of others. He decides to go back in time and start with those first novels written in 1999. To save the world of creativity, the hero and his novel-writing friends must prevent the villain from scraping their words and ideas, and using their novels against their will.