Piper Nuelle

Myself like many writers and authors used NaNoWriMo, a non profit organisation that helped writers and authors write a 50,000 word novel / book in… you guessed it, a month. But earlier this year, NaNoWriMo closed its doors for good! Unfortunately, the organisation was hit with some scandals that may have contributed to its downfall.

The NaNoWriMo community began back in around 1999 though more informally, it then grew to become a non-profit around 2006, where it then grew to a huge writing platform helping many authors write their book and acknowledge a dream come true.

Around the end of March / beginning of April 2025 they announced its closure to its huge writing community via email, (Which funnily enough I never received, even though I used their platform to help me write my book ‘Death’s Carousel’ back in the November of 2024). There was then a Youtube video posted explaining it had to close due to financial problems which were compounded by reputational damage.

But what scandals brought about this ‘Reputational damage?

• Members accused the organisation of mishandling complaints made about a moderator for one of their forums for grooming children on another website. Although it was seen that this ‘Moderator’ was let go eventually, it was for a different code of conduct and happened a lot slower than the community wanted. This then brought on an onslaught of other complaints, mostly with the worry about protecting children and children’s safety on their platform and other sites associated with them.
• Then there was the AI argument where NaNoWriMo was hugely criticised for stating that the use of artificial intelligence in creative writing would not be supported or condemned any writing that included the use of AI, saying “Categorical condemnation of artificial intelligence has classist and ableist undertones”. They also went on to say how “Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing and that not all brains have same abilities… There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can’t see the issues in their writing without help”. There was a Fantasy Author ‘CL Polk’ who stood up for the disabled writers against NaNoWriMo saying “NaNo is basically asserting that disabled writers don’t have what it takes to create art when they trot out the lie that scorning AI is ableist”.

These two scandals actually lowered a lot of faith in the organisation and I’m guessing with my opinion lowered the amount of people using its platform to write, but also lowered the amount of money that people and investors were willing to pay out to the company. I actually didn’t know about these scandals until this year, when I released my book and wanted to write a blog post about how I used NaNoWriMo to write it, and then I found out the website had closed down, the company closed down and it was no longer a thing. Obviously when I wrote my book almost this time last year, I just looked online for the writing aid of NaNoWriMo, I didn’t see or read about any of the controversies that had poisoned it. I do think if I had known, I wouldn’t have used NaNo in 2024 to write my book. I would have written it anyway but done my own challenge.

Number one – I am sickened by the accusation that one of their moderators groomed children. It is sickening, but the fact that they didn’t act on the complaints of its audience and ‘Let go’ the moderator under other circumstances just doesn’t sit right with me, it makes me feel like they were protecting that person, and not protecting the children that used their sites. Children should be able to be creative and write, hell, I wrote my first book as a teenager, it never amounted to anything, it was trash, but it was the beginning of me becoming a writer in my later years! But why shouldn’t we support children in the creative arts sector, and especially keep children safe in the creative arts sector.

Number two – The use of AI is tricky. I know there are lots of pros and cons to using it. And whilst I know that maybe it wasn’t the use of AI that was the underlying issue, it was beating around the bush about AI by also discriminating against disabled writers. For me, whilst I think AI is good say in cars to help predict when an accident may occur, to let you know when you are fatigued and to take a rest, or to shout when the car needs re-fuelling or servicing, I don’t agree with it in the creative arts field. Humans are creative, even those of us that are more academic say with the sciences, they still use their creative imaginations to create science experiments and to learn. But when it comes to art, painting, writing, music and so on, I feel it is unfair and unethical to use AI. AI should be there to help us, to aid us, not to do the fun things for us. I don’t want to be doing more chores because the AI is the one doing all the fun creative stuff. There are so many ‘Authors’ now that use AI to write the book, the just give it a basic idea and it writes it, they then use it to edit and then to sell it. Those authors are creating books at too fast a rate, within weeks they have new books to sell… Yet the proper author creates an idea, writes the first draft, then the second, then maybe the third, then edits, then edits some more, then proofs it and so on. This process can take months, up to a year, maybe even longer depending on the genre and size of the story. So to me, AI is an unfair advantage of greed. People use it to push out quantity over quality to make a quick buck and it then undermines the true author that carefully crafts their work.

I will add, that sometimes I do feel AI is ok to use as a tool, it is inevitable, we need to learn to live with it, and it is meant to be there to help and to aid us. I do admit to using AI on my blog to sometimes help me to create images, like to two I have on my blog today, both were indeed made with the WordPress AI image tool. For me, I am using it to aid my blog, but I am not trying to use it to write my blog, that is all me, my ideas etc. When it comes to images for my blog I do try to take photos as and where I can, but sometimes I do need something quick, or something I could not make on my own. I think for images like these AI is not a bad thing, but… When you do have an Artist who paints for a living and is making masterpieces by hand that takes them hours to make, I think that is important and beautiful, and AI should not be creating works of art like that to undermine artists. I also don’t think using AI to edit is that bad either.

I had an experience with a human editor that left a foul taste in my mouth. This editor read one of manuscripts, promised to edit it for a fee, told me six weeks would be the deadline. Nearly three months later they still had my manuscript and had not edited a single word… Yet an AI editor can edit in no time at all, find grammar mistakes and all for a cheaper cost or sometimes no cost. Plus, they are not taking your money and not, not doing the job. I have also heard from other authors where they paid a reputable editor who then proceeded to try and steal their work or to change it so much and then pass it off as their own when the author refused all the edits. In this sense I think AI for editing can be a huge help, unfortunately not all humans are trustworthy, and people steal ideas all the time, I think with AI authors feel more safe, like the AI is not going to steal their beloved book babies.

AI is a very grey area and within the writing and arts space it is still very much a topic that is heated.

So, November is now fast approaching and it used to be National Novel Writing Month, and some people still see it as that. I think because November is the time of year when the world slows, the sunlight is dimming, the chill of the air makes us want to stay inside and warm, and it paves way for more time to be spent at a computer writing.

So what can you do instead of NaNoWriMo to make November a month for you to write!

• Create your own version – Make a plan that November is the moth for you to write your book. Make space each day or night to write, tell people not to disturb you, for during these periods you are writing and writing is all (Unless an emergency of course). Use a calendar to plan daily. Day one – World building, Day Two – Character building, Day three – Chapter one and so on.
• Join a local writers group – You could join a local writers group that meet up and write together. Or create your own, you could contact your local library to see if you could put together a group there or advertise for one at least. Maybe with others around you all wanting the same goal of writing a novel you could write that book and inspire others too.
• Use another Novel Writing Organisation – One I keep seeing and popping up in my for you sections of social media is ProWritingAid who have a ‘Novel November’ event similar to that of NaNoWriMo. But if you are not keen on this one, then there are most probably more out there that have the same basic set up of letting authors write and tracking their progress and rewarding them.
• Or, just simply sit and write as much as you can during the month of November!!!

Will you be writing this November? Will you be attending any writing groups or using any aids or organisations to help? Let me know,

xo Piper xo