National Novel Writing Month
National Novel Writing Month, often shortened to NaNoWriMo, is an annual creative writing challenge that takes place in November of each year. Participants are tasked with writing a 50,000-word novel draft by the end of the month, aiming for an average of 1,667 words each day. Although the U.S. based nonprofit organization that founded the project closed in 2025, the event lives on through community-led initiatives and alternative platforms like NaNo 2.0.
The project began in July 1999 in San Francisco with only 21 participants. It snowballed over the next two decades, with over 400,000 people participating in 2022. Writers are instructed to prioritize speed and quantity over quality, with the 50,000 word count being the primary goal.
During the 25 years of the organization NaNoWriMo's existence, its website provided participants—called "Wrimos"—with an online community of support, information about local meetups, and tips for writer's block. Writers wishing to participate first registered on the project's website, where they could post profiles and information about their novels, including synopses and excerpts, and give each other feedback. Well-known authors wrote "pep talks" to motivate participants throughout the month. Regional volunteers, called "Municipal Liaisons," provided networking and advice, and organized in-person and virtual writing events for local writers.
In March 2025, the organization announced it was shutting down. Interim executive director Kilby Blades published a YouTube video the same day, citing financial struggles and "community vitriol" as the reasons for closure.
History
Freelance writer Chris Baty founded the project in July 1999 with 21 participants in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2000, he moved the event to November "to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather." He launched an official website to promote the event, designed by a friend. That year, 140 participants signed up. Due to the increasing popularity, Baty formed a Yahoo! group to create a community for the writers. When group members inquired about the guidelines, he established the project's basic ground rules: the novel must be new, cannot be co-authored, and must be submitted in time to be verified by the November 30 deadline. Of the 140 participants, 29 successfully completed the challenge in time, as verified by Baty himself.The following November, Baty expected similar numbers, but 5,000 writers registered, which he credits to the program being promoted by bloggers and news organizations such as the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Although Baty was happy with the large turnout and popularity of the event, he and the organization were not prepared to manage that many participants. The website had several glitches, which almost led to the cancelation of the event that year. In the end, they were able to move forward with the program, but asked people to self-identify as winners on an honor system rather than having to manually verify each participant; 700 people did so.
2002 saw technical improvements and increased automation to the site. Media attention from National Public Radio and CBS Evening News drew increased attention and a participant count of 14,000. The next year, the NaNoWriMo team began the Municipal Liaison program, where volunteers could act as moderators in the forums as well as send out the first set of pep talk emails. Municipal Liaisons also acted as leaders for a specific region under their jurisdiction—organizing fundraisers and calling meetings for NaNoWriMo participants residing in their region. Baty also began work on his debut book No Plot? No Problem! during the 2003 NaNoWriMo, writing the NaNoWriMo guide concurrently with his own novel.
In 2006, NaNoWriMo was registered as a nonprofit organization due to the event growing strongly every year. The nonprofit was originally named The Office of Letters and Light.
In 2011, the NaNoWriMo website was given a new layout and forums. Baty announced that he would be stepping down as executive director in January 2012 to pursue a full-time writing career. Grant Faulkner took his position as executive director. The redesigned website moved from the web server Drupal to Ruby on Rails. During the first month after launch, the new website supported over 1,000,000 visitors and more than 39,000,000 page views.
By 2015, 431,626 people participated in NaNoWriMo. Of those participants, more than 40,000 won.
In 2017, NaNoWriMo launched fundraising efforts to redesign the website again, raising $57,320. The new website was delayed, launching in 2019.
In late 2023, Grant Faulkner left the position of executive director. 2024 saw several staffing changes and the appointment of former board president Kilby Blades as interim director, while Faulkner held the position of Financial Stewardship Director from December 2023 to February 2024. That year, the organization posted to their website an entry titled "What is NaNoWriMo's position on Artificial Intelligence ?", in which they deemed the use of AI to be acceptable and stated "the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and ableist undertones." This stance generated controversy in the online community, with many on social media stating they were withdrawing support of or participation in the NaNoWriMo event. Some noted that makers of AI writing tools, such as ProWritingAid, were now listed among the sponsors for the event. In response to this statement, author Daniel José Older resigned from NaNoWriMo's Writers' Board, and author Maureen Johnson resigned from the Writers' Board of the Young Writers Program. NaNoWriMo also lost a sponsor, the writing collaboration platform Ellipsus, and The Mary Sue noted that FreeWrite had been removed from the sponsor page.
In response to the controversy, NaNoWriMo stated that their "commentary on ableism and classism was relevant to the bullying dynamics we were seeing across our social channels." They further clarified that the original statement posted was not a complete representation of their stance on the topic. These subsequent statements failed to allay criticism.
In 31 March 2025, director Kilby Blades published a YouTube video announcing the closure of the nonprofit, citing financial struggles and "community vitriol."
Rules
Since NaNoWriMo is used to get people writing, the rules are kept broad and straightforward:- Writing starts on November 1 at 12:00:00 a.m. and ends on November 30 at 11:59:59 p.m.
- No one is allowed to start early.
- Novels must reach at least 50,000 words by the end of November in order to win. These words can either be a complete novel of 50,000 words, or the first 50,000 words of a novel to be completed later.
- Planning and extensive notes are permitted, but no material written before the November 1 start date can go into the body of the novel.
- Participants can use any genre, theme, or language. According to the website's FAQ, "If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too." Various forms of fiction are allowed, including fan fiction, metafiction, novels in poem format, or screenplays. Even "rebelling" by writing something other than a novel is allowed, including non-fiction, video games, scripts, or academic writing, as NaNoWriMo is considered a "self-challenge"; rebels are allowed to self-validate and receive any prizes from sponsors.
Winning and prizes
No official prizes were awarded for length, quality, or speed, though self-awarded badges were available on the site. Anyone who reached the 50,000-word mark was declared a winner. Beginning November 20, participants could submit their novel to be automatically verified for length and receive a printable certificate, an icon they could display on the web, and inclusion on the list of winners. No precautions were taken to prevent cheating; since the reward for winning was the finished novel itself and the satisfaction of having written it, there was little incentive to cheat. Novels were verified for word count by software, and could be scrambled or otherwise encrypted before being submitted for verification, although the software does not keep any other record of text input. It was possible to win without anyone other than the author ever seeing or reading the novel. Verification ended with the website redesign in 2019. Winning was now achieved by simply entering a word count of more than 50,000 words.
In October 2007, the self-publishing company CreateSpace teamed up with NaNoWriMo to begin offering winners a single free, paperback proof copy of their manuscripts, with the option to use the proof to then sell the novel on Amazon.com. In 2011, CreateSpace offered winners five free, paperback proof copies of their manuscripts. In addition to CreateSpace, each year NaNoWriMo had a new list of sponsors that reward winners and participants with various discounts and prizes. 2015 was the last year that CreateSpace partnered with NaNoWriMo.