NaNoWriMo is dead, long live NaNoWriMo!

October 26, 2025

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) entered my life in 2010. I was fresh out of grad school and unemployed. I was talking to a friend of mine who had picked up writing as a hobby in retirement. He described this wild writing challenge where thousands of people across the world would each attempt to write a 50k-word novel during the 30 days of November. As daunting as it sounded, I was intrigued.

When I was a kid, I enjoyed writing stories. One of my first memories of creative writing was when, in first grade, we were asked to keep a journal. There was a time during each day when we were allowed to take out our spiral bound notebook and write something in it. First grade me began by writing things such as “I like girls” or “I like to eat.” But I quickly got bored of that and began the real fun of writing my own stories. They were usually fan fiction (not that I knew what fan fiction was) involving Batman and his outsmarting the Joker.

Novel writing seemed like an impossible task. I never thought to attempt it. I mostly stuck with writing terrible poetry and maybe a few short stories. But talking to my friend about his rekindled love for writing, and the idea that normal people were out there trying to write novels in a month, inspired me to visit the website and sign up.

I quickly discovered a large internet community, all focused on this ridiculous writing challenge. I found discussion forums like the Adoption Society, where one could share characters, villains, chapter naming schemes, and even entire plots with others—offering them up for “adoption” so that someone else could breathe life into one’s unused material. I found that I could join a local region on the website—essentially a small forum with people who were in geographic proximity. And not only that, but my region had an official volunteer, a municipal liaison, who would organize in-person writing events throughout the month.

I was too shy to join any in-person activities, but I did attempt the challenge in November 2010, getting about 19k words into it before giving up. It was pretty terrible, but it was the most I had ever written toward a single work. It was stressful, but I enjoyed it. I knew I would be attempting it again.

National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 when one man, Chris Baty, emailed his friends with the idea of sharing a goal to write a novel in a month. As the event blew up in following years and took hold on the internet, Chris formed a nonprofit that ultimately became NaNoWriMo, an organization that ran the event and promoted creative writing. The organization took on running the website and forums. They also handled organizing volunteers to serve as municipal liaisons in regional areas, giving them resources and supplies needed to host local writing events, called write-ins. The organization developed curricula for teachers of various grade levels to use in the classroom.

NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit, was funded by donations from the community and from sponsorships (and presumably some grants).

Each year, NaNoWriMo ran the flagship November writing challenge of the same name in addition to several other writing challenges throughout the year. The forums were a popular hangout spot and formed a rather large, diverse writing community. In-person write-ins popped up all over the world and at its peak 400,000+ people participated in the flagship November event.

In March 2025, after suffering reputational damage from their position on AI, a forum safety scandal and—as a board member described in a video—years of financial hardship, NaNoWriMo the organization announced it was going away.

As of the time of this writing, the website no longer loads. It’s a sad ending to what was once a whimsical writing community event adored by many.

In 2011, I attempted the challenge again. As much as I romanticized the idea of writing an outline and planning out the entire story before writing, I was cursed to be a pantser (i.e., writing by the seat of your pants). I gave it my best shot. I didn’t make it to 50k, but I managed to get well into the 30k range and something clicked. I could visualize what writing a 50k-word novel would look like.

My next attempt in 2012 was the one that took me over the finish line. I actually gave up a part-time job (that I was close to giving up anyway) in order to focus 100% of my time on completing the novel. The story I ended up with isn’t all that good, but it’s a completed thought. There’s a beginning and a middle and an end. There are at least one or two semi-interesting characters. It felt great to finish the rough draft of a novel—a novel… I was a novelist. I bought a NaNoWriMo t-shirt, and I bought one almost every year during the 2010s.

I finished a story the next year, although I didn’t quite make it to 50k before the story ended. This was the story I’m most ashamed of as it was just ridiculous. It also has my favorite side character—a paranoid 60-something private investigator with a messy office and a conspiracy theory for everything. In 2014 I wrote what I feel is the best of my completed 50k-word drafts. It ended up being somewhat of a paranormal drama which surprised me as I’m not usually into that sort of thing.

I also became the municipal liaison for my region for several years. I would organize write-ins, including one that happened at my house! Me, a weird introvert—this is how important NaNoWriMo was to me. It was fun and I met some great people.

In the years following I participated off and on but I was usually pretty busy with work, having landed my first full-time job in 2015, and I never really made the time to finish another novel.

My disability progressed during that time as well and typing became more of a chore. In 2022, I became a NaNo rebel^[1] by adjusting the November goal from 50k to 20k and focusing on writing novellas. I completed that goal twice.

I didn’t participate in 2024 and it seems that a lot of people also skipped out. 2024 was the first year that NaNoWriMo happened without any forums. The once-thriving forums had been shut down the previous year by the organization’s board of directors after the forum safety scandal.

It was always just a fun hobby for me. I never published anything and I never really edited anything beyond the rough draft. I was content with my audience of two (thanks mom and Matt!).

This event was a big part of my identity for many years. I collected t-shirts from the event. I have a poster still hanging on my wall. Even though I haven’t participated as much in recent years, I still reminisce on some good times and good people. I think what really irks me is the unceremonious ending. I’m not usually one to get too deep into the drama of things like this, but I can’t help but feel a little slighted by NaNoWriMo’s board of directors. If they really cared about this event, they could have at least ensured that a static one-page website remained to communicate the legacy of NaNoWriMo—something to describe its history, what it meant to people, and maybe some encouragement to continue writing. You can host a static website for free.

Instead, when visiting the website, we are left with the arch-nemesis of every writer—a blank page.

But even as NaNoWriMo the organization (and website) is gone, NaNoWriMo the challenge endures. There will still be thousands of people attempting to write a novel during the month of November. They may change the rules, and they may call it something else, but they will write the words all the same.

Many of us have found other groups to commiserate with. We’ve found other sites and tools for tracking our writing. I’m still not sure if I’m going to participate myself this year. If anyone in Mississippi is interested, there is a Discord server formerly representing this region’s NaNoWriMo group which is now called Mississippi Porchlight Writers. If I do end up attempting the challenge, I will be hanging out there and probably using this website to track my word count.

To Wrimos old and new, I hope you continue to write too. I will leave you with NaNoWriMo’s old tagline.^[2]

The world needs your novel.

Update 10/28: I just found out that the founder NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, and some other people have created a website called NaNo 2.0. This new version of the event is essentially like the old one but with the change that you can set any writing goal you want and you don’t need to sign up on the website or do anything further (but you can sign up for their emailed pep talks and whatnot). They encourage the use of any writing groups, apps, and other resources that you have available rather than trying to be a monopoly on it.

I can’t really endorse something I only just found out about, but it looks promising. I guess there’s something nostalgic and comforting about the fact that someone is attempting to keep the spirit of the event alive.