For many years, I was involved with National Novel Writing Month; for brevity, we’ll use its diminutives NaNoWriMo or NaNo. We gathered such an enthusiastic group that we started running weekly meet-ups from 2015, even outside the novel-writing challenge of November.
Six months ago, there were a couple of scandals. The first was when a member of staff in California stood down after making a racist comment about a colleague. Separately, the organisation was slow to remove a forum moderator who was sending inappropriate material to minors. You can read the full reasons in the entry from March 2024.
After this, it was a relatively simple decision for my fellow organiser and I to withdraw our affiliation and continue as an independent group. In my view, this group is now much more streamlined while keeping the experience much the same for members.
Then over the last couple of weeks, NaNo has faced another backlash, this time over their implicit approval of members using artificial intelligence in their projects. Literary news rarely makes it to mainstream outlets, but the New York Times and Wired both reported the story.
The statement from NaNo was a long and rambling piece, but the most widely reported passage was:
We also want to be clear in 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.
This statement has now been somewhat retracted, but not before several board members resigned and partnership organisations considered whether to continue their involvement.
It’s not just the message that disappoints me, but the tone of it. The organisation I joined in 2010 would never have been so confrontational. The organisation I knew would have considered the question carefully and then addressed it with good grace and humour, reminding members of their core values.
I’ve imagined below how they might have phrased their statement.
We recognise there are strong feelings in the writing community at large about the use of artificial intelligence software, both in favor of its use and against. As NaNoWriMo is self-guided, we can’t stop you from using such software to craft your novel. However, we feel typing or writing each word by hand, day after day, is more in-keeping with the spirit of the challenge.
By ditching the attitude problem, isn’t it so much more pleasant to read? You can also bet the old NaNo would have responded to any feedback in a measured way. Its new version has fallen into the same pattern of making brash statements and then backing down but without apologising.
The next test of NaNo in its current form will be the main November challenge.
If the current organisation manages to scrape through the next three months without involvement in any other newsworthy events, then even I concede it stands a chance of surviving until 2025 and beyond. However, it will almost certainly be with a much-reduced membership who will be watching the situation carefully.
If something else happens to rock the boat during that time, I reckon that’s the end of NaNo as an organisation.
Nobody asked me, but I’d recommend National Novel Writing Month announces a voluntary winding up of operations in December. This would allow members to complete one last novel, to download their data from the website, and to end the organisation in a relatively neat manner.
But that won’t happen because any good grace and self-awareness has now vanished from National Novel Writing Month.
Gavin Cameron 