The NaNoWriMo Closure | Where Do I Hope We Go From Here?

I'm writing this on Monday, March 31, 2024. Here in my corner of Connecticut, we're seeing the first daffodils bloom and we're preparing for spring break at the escape room I work at. But nevertheless, it's been dreary with even more rain to follow in the coming days. The sky looks not like one you'd see in the first weeks of springtime, but the middle of November.

Which means there's something almost poetic about the email that popped up as I was clocking out tonight: NaNoWriMo has announced its closure.

National Novel Writing Month, commonly known as NaNoWriMo, is (was) an annual challenge taking place every November, during which participants were charged with writing 50,000 words in the span of thirty days; this equals out to 1,667 words each day.

However, the nonprofit organization has announced that it is beginning the process of shutting down. I can't say I'm surprised by the decision, as it seems to be the culmination of several things, but I'm still feeling the ache.

I'd only ever participated in the annual writing challenge once (in an official capacity, at least) in 2023 when I started writing A Tided Love. And like a lot of writers, I abstained in 2024 due to the organization's stance on AI and writing (more on that in a second). No matter how often you participated in the challenge or how many words you wrote, that shiny 50K-word goal wasn't the only thing that kept writers coming back. It was the community. And it's the loss of that community that has inspired this feeling of grief in myself and, I imagine, many others.

Though they cited financial difficulties in their email, it's worth noting that it's potentially the outcome of unfortunate events and poor decisions.

I covered this in a post last year, which you can read for further context here, but to sum it up, things were already shaky in 2023 with the emergence of accusations of a forum moderator exploiting minors through NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program. Things only got worse when it seemed that the organization did little to address the issues. After community backlash, the forums were shuttered with age restrictions on social features to be put in place.

This debacle was one reason some writers had already distanced themselves from NaNoWriMo and were unsure about participating in the future.

Fast-forward to September 2024. NaNoWriMo HQ released a statement regarding the use of AI in writing. While they started off saying there's no one way to write, they also didn't say you couldn't use AI to write your book (apart from a quip about how that would defeat the purpose of the challenge). And it was THIS that really lit a fire under the writing community.

But it wasn't just the fact that NaNoWriMo HQ didn't outright say using AI to write your book was verboten. They offered justifications that boiled down to three things: classism, ableism, and general accessibility issues. This did not go over well whatsoever.

I saw speculations that this was related to an AI software sponsoring the challenge that year and not wanting to disparage that company's product, but I cannot confirm that.

But if you ask me, this is what marked the end of NaNoWriMo as we knew it. Hundreds of writers, myself included, chose not to participate in the challenge. And while the email sent out by HQ today says that although they'd been self-sufficient until recently due to an "unfortunate trend" and "funding woes," users could still donate to the nonprofit—as stated on the website, they're "a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides tools, structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page."

I just want to note that this unfortunate trend is very real, sadly, even though I don't think it's the only thing that prompted this shutdown of NaNoWriMo. If you're able to do so, please support your local libraries, indie bookstores. nonprofits, and the arts wherever possible, especially those that offer or aid youth programs.

Apart from donations the nonprofit received, there was also a merch store; I bought myself the 2023 Winner shirt the year of my "official" participation. However, with fewer participants in the wake of controversy, I find it likely that there were fewer donations received and merch purchased. Additionally, several sponsors pulled out once NaNoWriMo HQ released their statement on AI, meaning another chunk of money lost.

Let me reiterate that math and finances aren't my strong suit, and my knowledge of behind-the-scenes nonprofit things is minimal and absorbed from conversations with my mother who works as a financial manager for two nonprofits, so take these assumptions with a grain of salt.

So while I do think financial difficulties in an ever-changing and more challenging landscape greatly impacted NaNoWriMo, I can't assume that was the sole reason for the decision to shut down. It was the culmination of factors.

In the email, NaNoWriMo HQ recognizes this closure as a blow to the writing community. And on that front, they're right.

Not only was NaNoWriMo a time to celebrate creativity and uplift fellow writers, it was an opportunity to find community in a way that was accessible, no matter who you were, where you were, or how much writing you'd done before.

It was also free. Financial concerns are often a barrier for writers looking to attend seminars or take writing courses. NaNoWriMo didn't require you to have a subscription or purchase a specific software. You didn't have to attend in-person events because there were so many virtual write-ins happening.

All you had to do was show up for your story and make progress towards your goal.

But now the question remains...

Where Do We Go From Here?

Even though I'm not entirely surprised by this news from NaNoWriMo HQ, it still hurts to hear as a writer.

I don't have a long-standing relationship with the National Novel Writing Month, as I'd only ever taken part in 2023, but using it as an opportunity to start a new story after being in an editing rut for so long and challenge myself to try a new approach to writing was one of many steps in starting to rekindle my love of writing. A Tided Love was the first bit of what felt like "really" writing again after the height of my long covid symptoms had me in really a low place. Attending in-person writing events for the first time since college classes half a decade before and a freaking pandemic was restorative. For that, I am grateful.

So many of us have found writing friends through participating in NaNoWriMo. Maybe you're like me and took it as inspiration to start on a new project and climb out of a deep rut, desperate to rekindle that creative spark. Or NaNoWriMo was your first time writing a book and you fell in love with the creative process.

No matter what brought you to NaNoWriMo, it was often that community that made you want to stay. It was a time to motivate and uplift others as we challenged ourselves to grow.

And feeling like we're losing all of that? THAT is the part that hurts the most.

Being a writer often feels isolating. NaNoWriMo offered a space to find friendship, support, and community. And with that space first marred and now fading away entirely, it feels a little more lonely.

The end of NaNoWriMo as an organization doesn't have to mean the end of that creative spirit, however. I know of several challenges that started up in 2024 that I hope will continue in 2025. But even if that isn't the case, it is my hope that we can continue to build a supportive community of writers who champion the human instinct to create.

I'm going to end this post the same way I ended my post about abstaining from NaNoWriMo in 2024: Just keep writing. In spite of it all. Keep writing.