NaNope Write More: Revisiting a Ghost
One Year Anniversary of the Death of NaNoWriMo
This article is in response to James Garside’s article, EP0010 Notes from the Trenches - Nano Why Mo (Reading) - Chapter 23, in what started as a comment (though, as you’ll see below, I warned would be a novella), but I soon realized was far too long to be one.
So here we are.
Enjoy.
Or not.
I’m not your supervisor (though I’m clearly in a mood).
NaNoWriMo died roughly a year ago at the time of publishing, mostly due to its decision to allow authors to use AI to cross that 50k word count and the subsequent fallout, but also due to financial reasons, terrible forum moderation, and declining participation (video).
Their no-longer-available original statement in 2023 stated that using AI to assist writers was fine, but not to write the entire novel, as that defeated the purpose of the writing challenges. Not necessarily well-received, the larger and more problematic issue came in 2024, when they changed their stance to say they didn’t explicitly support or condemn the use of AI, but recognized and respected writers who used AI as a tool.
Pretty much the same statement, right? But then they added that ignoring the use of AI as a tool would be classicist and ableist, raising questions of privilege and access to resources that not all writers had (i.e. editors, developmental assistance, etc.).
As you can imagine, this is where the outrage ignited.
Ready for my novella?
As someone who has used NaNo in the past since near its inception and both won and failed (my second book was fleshed out bc of it), my eyes rolled so hard into the back of my head when the uproar began over the second statement. Let’s get a few things out of the way first:
Do I approve of the use of AI to write books? No.
Do I think it can be a solid, assistive tool? Yes.
Do I want to hear ‘real writers won’t use AI’ nonsense? No.
Do I know about the environmental impact of AI data centers? Yes.
Do you have any other questions you’d like to ask me under the erroneous assumption that I’m stupid and don’t do my research before I write about things?
I’ll wait.
Oh, wait, I won’t.
Mood. I warned you.
Let’s move forward.
RAGE BANDWAGON
I’m exhausted by the outrage when the majority of these writers have no clue about the cogs and gears currently working through the system that are meant to help us, like these:
The Anthropic theft decision (and how you can file a claim if your book was in the theft—MARCH 30TH IS THE LAST DAY!) and what it means for AI and books.
The US Copyright Office Determination about how copyrightable a work can be dependent on the amount of generative AI is flat-out included vs generative AI used as a tool to assist the creator and more.
How a federal judge ruled that AI training is ‘fair use’
How another judge warned Meta could ‘obliterate’ the market for original works
Which US states are working on/passed AI legislation (EU/UK)
What’s the US administration’s AI policy?
What AI legislation has been introduced (119th Congress has 100+) or passed in Congress (surprise, surprise - 0)?
If you knew about these, great. Then I’m not talking to you.
I’m not saying the rage isn’t misplaced. It absolutely is. The book world is hard enough for authors, more so for indy and small press authors.
But this rage bandwagon? It’s fantastic to stir up shit on socials. Empty torch and pitchforks. And like most things, it fizzles when the next new thing comes up.
Why isn’t this being focused into progressive demand for AI guardrails? Why aren’t we demanding big ebook sellers, like Amazon, remove or recategorize AI books? Why isn’t there an enforced mandatory (and clear) labeling that these titles are wholly generated by AI? Have they signed the petition to Remove the ‘Ask this Book’ AI function on Kindle? Or this petition to protect authors in the UK?
Five minutes of Google searching.
Five. Minutes.
Or, say, better overall societal appreciation for ALL BOOKS. Not just those that make it into the mainstream view, whether as part of a celebrity book club, an influencer debut, or appearing on the NYT Best Sellers List (whether bc of the first two or bc they had the money to market their way there, which most of us don’t have). No shade to any of these avenues, just that it leaves a lot of great authors behind in obscurity fighting against ever-changing social media algorithms.
FLAWED HONOR SYSTEM
A huge part of NaNoWriMo was the honor system.
When you upload your manuscript, their program counts words. That’s it.
It doesn’t judge the quality of the work.
It doesn’t check grammar, flow or dialogue.
Word. Count.
It’s on you, the writer, to be honest about what you’ve submitted.
So, if you submitted a document with the phrase ‘fuck you’, 25,000 times, guess what? You win.
You get the cute little certificate, the little icon or whatever on your profile, the little downloadables to share on your socials, and yes, access to all the discounted places/services like Scrivener, NovelPad, IngramSpark, author services, etc.
Cheater? Yeah. Still win. And no one know but you (and anyone you told). So, using AI, while also unethical for the purposes of this self-competition, will be unknown to anyone but the submitter.
Here’s the thing:
The use of AI does not affect the quality and integrity of your own writing.
Doesn’t mean you have to like that people use AI. Or that some companies are okay with participants using AI. Or that AI is showing up everywhere.
WRITE ANYWAY, DAMMIT
We’re still allowed to write what we want. We can still be published. People can still buy our books. And despite what I said earlier, there is no better time to be a writer than now. We have more venues for publication, better respect for self-publication (anyone else remember the debacle of its infancy?), access to an amazing variety of cover artists, editors, formatting assistance, etc. and a mostly supportive writing community on social media, discord and places like Substack.
The Author’s Guild saved us a lot of time by creating a new model clause to add to the copyright sections of our publishing contracts. And I’ve adapted it for the copyright blurb in my newest upcoming self-published works.
We lose more money to people who pirate our books than those who publish AI books in our genres. Bc the people buying cheap AI books were never buying ours.
Is it annoying to see them place higher in listings? Absolutely.
Are we allowed to be livid? 100%
But AI isn’t going anywhere.
The sooner people accept that, the faster we can work together to do something about this strange new world we’re in. It’s not SkyNet. It’s not even 1984.
NaNoWriMo wasn’t a one-off. They were trying to adjust to the changing times. They just did it badly, not taking into consideration what the audience response would be—again, a five minute Google search—and it was the final nail in the coffin of their business.
What you do next is up to, well, you.
Make your own decisions, instead of verbally vomiting the echoes of the circled bandwagons.
Or don’t.
I’m not your supervisor.
I do want you to succeed as a writer, though.
(And I guess the mood has passed.)