Overview - National Novel Writing Month

For the last 25 years, National Novel Writing Month (referred to often as NaNoWriMo or NaNo) has been a mainstay for novelists around the world, building community among folks who aim to write 50k words of a novel in the month of November. The national organization started small and ballooned in size, encompassing hundreds of thousands of participants over the years. They became a full-blown 501c3 charity and worked to bring novel writing success to children and disadvantaged communities. 

 

Unfortunately, the last few years has seen the national organization hit with controversy. First, they were taking on questionable sponsors. There were scam-based vanity presses that were offering nominal discounts to questionable services for NaNo winners to immediately publish their unedited manuscripts. There was some push back, but NaNo addressed that issue. Then, in November of 2023, it was revealed that one of the forum moderators was essentially using their forums to groom underage users. You can read more about it here, but a lot of volunteers adopted a wait and see attitude with the national organization over the last year to see if NaNo would clean up this mess and work to not make any others.

 

Usually, volunteers would have normally been notified in each region of NaNo (Utah is home to four regions) and would have been trained and been able to begin organizing events, but the organization seems to have no volunteers this year so far. On top of that, early in September, they took on a sponsor that peddles in generative AI (already questionable in the eyes of most writers) and then put out a statement explaining that speaking out against generative AI was categorically ableist and classist. At that point, the rest of the writers on their board walked away from the organization and they have not made any moves to resume activity for any of the writers who would utilize their services in the first place.

 

Utah Novel Writing Month

The League of Utah Writers decided that, as part of our mission to create community for writers of all skill levels, we would step in to host a Utah Novel Writing Month in November to act as an alternative to National Novel Writing Month, using the League as a stopgap measure for writers looking to find that community and not miss out on the activity that many have spent decades participating in and find central to their process.

 

The League has been working on spreadsheets, logos, and marketing to help support anyone who wants to participate and we’ll need help from regional liaisons and chapter presidents all across the state.

 

For chapter presidents, this is a great way to meet new members of your local writing community. Though there should be no pressure to join your local writing chapter, having new folks see how active and involved your chapter is in local events, it will be a great recruiting tool for the League, leading by example.

 

We already have a Discord that’s been used by the Salt Lake City region of National Novel Writing Month for the last few years. It can be used by anyone who would like to participate in the Utah version. This is an open invite and you can join here: https://discord.gg/Bxe4qRvZKj 

 

How You Can Help

Normally, Novel Writing Month is overseen in each region by what NaNo used to call Municipal Liaisons (MLs). These MLs were folks that were part of each community that would host events, pass out stickers, offer encouragement, and help folks talk through writing problems. We’re hoping that our chapter presidents and regional liaisons can help run some of these events through the months of October, November, and December. 

 

The following is a list of the typical sorts of events that are usually entailed with Novel Writing Month.

 

Prep-Tober

This event is usually held at some point in October and is a chance for a guest teacher to come in and help writers get their outline or story synopsis ready. Past President Bryan Young has one scheduled for October 5 already and will be broadcasting it on Zoom, but having a local event would be good as well, especially as it gets closer to November.

 

Kick-Off Event

This is usually a getting to know you event, held the last weekend of October, just before the madness of November begins. There’s usually one for each region and everyone gets together and meets and talks about their writing. It might be good for regional liaisons to work on coordinating these so there are four of these state-wide and not 30 of them, but anything is possible.

 

Midnight Write-In

Believe it or not, there are a lot of folks who want to start writing as soon as the clock strikes midnight on November 1st. For most of us, it’s still Halloween. This might be a statewide zoom event, but there are coffee shops open and you might want to consider an in-person event if you’re a night owl and don’t mind staying out late.

 

Write-Ins

The bread and butter of Novel Writing Month are write-ins. People like getting together in shared spaces to write. A lot of times, the person organizing the event will hand out stickers or other goodies, run word sprints (see below), or offer some other games or incentives for writing. They often take place at coffee shops, libraries, game stores, bookstores, or wherever folks feel comfortable gathering. 

 

We’re hoping chapter presidents would be able to run between one and four during the month of November.

 

Halfway Party - Donation Day

This usually takes place on the 15th of November, and it’s the official halfway point. Usually folks are in the middle of their story and need encouragement and socialization, or they’ve fallen behind and need encouragement. Sometimes, some writers have already finished their 50k and deserve applause and can help encourage the others. As a 501c3, NaNo used to use this as an opportunity to fundraise as “Donation Day” for the organization and the League should do that for itself as well.

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Last Day Catch Up Write-In

You’d be amazed how many folks will burn off 10-15k words on the last day of November if they have a space to do it and a group of people willing to write with them.

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TGIO

This is the “Thank God it’s Over Party” usually held on the first Saturday of December, which also coincides with Utah Author’s Day. We could still combine them. But this is usually just to celebrate the achievement and just relax for a day.

 

What’s a Writing Sprint?

A writing sprint is a set amount of time where everyone tries to add as many words to their manuscript as possible. It can range from 1 minute to 30 minutes, though 5 and 15 tend to be the most popular. Sometimes, there can be incentives for being the one to write the most. One of the more popular write-ins happens at a chocolate shop and the ML would buy an assortment of chocolates and reward themself with a chocolate for every X amount of words written, but then also give a chocolate to the winner of each writing sprint.

 

They can be run however you want them.