The NaNoWriMo Controversies

So, with NaNoWriMo coming up, I've been talking to a lot of people about how I still want to take part in the event despite not wanting to support the organisation because of all the controversies. This is followed by a lot of people who either hadn't heard about the controversies, or who thought that the insane statement about AI was the only controversy. And so, I made this little video with a brief summary of all of NaNoWriMo's most problematic controversies to keep everybody up to speed. It was very fun to make. Such a crazy rabbit hole to dive down.

 

What an informative video! I'd read about AI and NaNo, and I was disgusted by their attitude toward generative AI.

I've participated in NaNoWriMo twice and am currently rewriting the book I wrote for NaNo 2012. I never used the NaNo forums because I hooked up with writing buddies through my blog or on writing forums. If I am honest, I was so busy writing and trying to hit my 1666 words a day that I never had time to hang out on forums beyond comparing/sharing daily word counts and a quick hello and offering words of encouragement when my writing buddies fell behind. Working in a group did motivate me to complete two NaNo challenges.

 

Good list of what has happened. I never did any of their challenges since I had my own stories and stuff to do.

I think they acted the way they did because of their sponsors. Money is everything...
Sad.

Perhaps they would have seen better success if they commercialised somehow, or accepted donations. Though, with the way they have acted, it seems fair that they crash and burn.

I hope someone makes a novel a year challenge, that would be more interesting.

 

You don't need an organisation to set that challenge, you can do it for yourself, surely.

 

I think I'm definitely going to be the same. I've made quite a few friends who are doing NaNoWriMo outside of the website but the issue is that they're all scattered about. If they were all in the same place I think it would be easy to be keeping up with messages every day but going from website to website, I'm actually really struggling to keep up with everyone.

Oh, they accept donations alright. One thing I forgot to mention in the video, some time in May 2024, NaNoWriMo released an extremely long statement that essentially boiled down to, "We understand that a lot of bad things have happened on the NaNoWriMo website. We don't want bad things to happen on the website anymore. We are going to make lots of big improvements to the website to make sure that no more bad things happen... But those improvements are going to cost a lot of money... So everybody should donate loads of money to us so that we can fix the problems that we made!"

True, but having a community of people who are also doing the same challenge as you is also nice.

 

This.

I honestly did not know Nanowrimo was a group (I mean I probably heard about the group at some point but) I heard about the November writing challenge from general writing circles.

My goal is to take part in it this year, but I had no intention to sign up or whatever you do with the group, I was just going to set goals for myself and hopefully keep to them. If I need a community, there is no shortage of writing communities taking part in it including this one.

 

Of course, but if a group of people are doing the same thing, it may increase motivation for some.

 

Why not meet up here? Post your daily word count so the WF family will encourage and motivate you. I loved the challenge, the discipline, and working with other writers. I was hoping to take part, but I have deadlines to meet, and I am already a month behind.

 

That is indeed why I created the "today's writing feat" thread, though it's not just for NaNoWriMo.

 

Maybe we could do a "track your wordcount" thread


(Actually.... i may do this.....)

 

This is a great community, but the friends I've made have specifically been people who are already doing NaNoWriMo this year, and I found them all on different websites and discords, so if I want to talk to all of them, I've got to jump about a bit... I should really just keep tabs open for all the websites where I have NaNo friends... But I have way too many tabs open already.

 

That would be awesome!

 

With all the controversy going on with Nanowrimo there is an alternative Royalroad is doing their own challenge.