The latest controversy to befall NaNoWriMo surrounds their stance on the use of generative AI, primarily LLMs (Large Language Models). As an aside, I loathe the overuse (and misuse) of the term AI, and thus, in this essay, I will use LLM instead of this colloquialism. NaNoWriMo’s post is here, if you desire to read it. Basically, they decided to go beyond stating their support of AI and make arguments about how demonizing its use is ableist and classist. I won’t address that here; others will do it with far more justice. See Chuck Wendig, The Verge, or you can search it. In this post, I’ll cover my personal experience with NaNoWriMo over the years, what it meant, and why the downfall of this organization saddens me.
A short story of my NaNoWriMo experience
Back in November 2019, I participated in my first-ever NaNoWriMo. Sometimes, I am amazed at my own lack of common sense regarding information on the internet. Instead of googling the term and discovering a whole website and community around National Novel Writing Month, I just assumed you did the writing, and if you got to 50K, you won. I tracked my words each day and finished my second-ever novel.
I won NaNoWriMo. Woot me. It wasn’t until later that author friends clued me into the website and the community.
I’d go on to participate in a camp NaNo, where I cranked out most of my third book. And then again for a “real” NaNoWriMo in November of 2021. This time, I joined the local NaNo group in my area and joined the discord. It was nice getting to do sprints with other writers, and the ML even put together packages for the participants with notes to open each day. It felt like a community and so much more social than those lonely days when I wrote alone and posted to crickets on social media.
I’d participate in one more NaNo, though only to track word count and get the dopamine hit of the badges. By then, I’d joined two other writing groups for support and critique. I’d never really met any true friends in the NaNo community, but it had shown me how nice it is to have a community of authors to bounce ideas off and for those times when the demons are trying to bring it all crumbling down.
The concept of community is what NaNoWriMo gave me. And I am grateful for that.
The idea that once was NaNoWriMo
Behind NaNoWriMo is a simple idea: Get people together and work toward an individual but common goal: write a novel in a month—or maybe the beginnings of what you can turn into a novel. For some, pushing to meet a daily word count is new, or they’ve never written with others cheering each other on. It demystifies the idea that the author must sit in their room alone listening to the muses whisper.
NaNoWriMo taught me to write on a deadline, to get a rough draft done and edit it later. It forced me to commit to my writing. In doing so, I shed some of the delusions about writing and community along the way and allowed myself to talk openly with others about my writin. To find others I trusted to give me feedback.
If for nothing else, I’m grateful to NaNoWriMo for this. Yes, there are other places that foster this kind of community, but NaNo is where I first found it. Becuase all I had to do with commit to writing a novel. That’s it.
Others can say this method doesn’t work. Every month is a novel writing month. And they aren’t wrong. But I’m for anything that gets people moving toward their writing goals. That provides a place for authors to come together and find each other. Anything to help people build the beginning of their own writing process and then if they graduate and move on to different areas of the writing community, so be it.
I’m saddened by the idea of one less place authors might gather. That the stigma from the greater writing community might tarnish others from finding this. People will have to look elsewhere, and it might take them that much longer to discover how they love writing and how creativity fills their lives.
Ghosts in the Machine
So, the big bad monster, LLMs.
One only needs to go to YouTube to see the dozens of video essays on how badly Big Tech wants people to buy into the LLM fade. Who knows? This technology might be around forever or go the way of NFTs. Time will tell.
As for writers using this technology, I can’t judge others. If someone wants to write a book with AI, I know I can’t stop them. I’d hope they would at least choose to edit it and put a little of themselves into the story. Becuase, at the core, every word is these LLMs are stolen from somewhere else. That’s the deal with the devil if someone chooses to use the content as their own.
Writers can choose to use these models to say help craft a writing routine for their first novel. Before I ever read a book on writing, plot structure, or character arcs, it might have been nice to have a tool to help me discover my writing process. To make the impossible idea of writing a book a little more approachable.
And yet, a whole host of blood, sweat, and tears goes into each authors peronsal writing journey. The process of discovering how you transform the pictures and ideas in your head onto the page. How you structure the writing process to ensure the words get written. It took a lot of trial and error to get where I am now, and I’ll never stop evolving as a writer. This transformation is something no LLM can ever replace or generate. For that matter, not even other writers can tell you exactly how you will write a novel. We all just tell how we did it and hope some breadcrumb works for you too.
The beauty is in the writing itself
At the end of the day, I am a writer. I’ve been doing this for years and hope to do it for the rest of my life.
This isn’t to say that every day of writing is roses. There is a lot of struggle that comes with the creative life. Self-doubt, imposter syndrome, failures galore. But these make the wins all the more sweet. As Chuck Wendig wrote, “Failure is magic. It’s an instruction manual written in scare tissue.”1
The joy of my life is transmuting ideas from my head into words others can read and transform into mind movies. Through the ups and downs, I always come back to writing; this creative endeavor fills the cup of my soul.
No LLM can generate this sensation for me. I don’t want to edit a robot’s words. I barely want it to edit mine (I’m looking at you, Grammarly). No LLM can replace chatting and learning from other writers. But it can provide a tool for those who need a boost. I’m not going to judge.
But for this writer. I want to write the words.
- Wendig, C. (2023). Gentle writing advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself. Penguin. ↩︎