No, No, NanoWrimo

NanoWrimo tee-shirts

It is the end of October, and several people have asked me, are you going to do that thing this year? You know, the writing thing, where you write a book in the month of November?

NanoWrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month. You sign up, and commit to writing a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days. There is no prize, or rather, if you achieve the goal, you earn the right to buy a tee-shirt commemorating your achievement. You are a winner!

The structure is meant to encourage writers, young writers, would-be writers, to just write. Stop prevaricating, stop pausing all the time to ask yourself, is it good enough? and just write. Get on with it. You can fuss around later. You can edit it or rewrite it all you like. You can even put it away, satisfied that you did something. But just, for one month, sit down and write.

But NanoWrimo is no more. The only remains are a post on Wikipedia describing its trajectory over the last 25 years. It started in July 1999 with 21 participants in San Francisco. In 2022 there were 413,00 participants all around the world. It ended in March 2025.

Why? Put simply, its demise was due to philosophical wars. Central to the internal conflict was whether AI (artificial intelligence) had a place in NanoWrimo. There were some vocal supporters of the legitimacy of AI. And there were some adamant opponents. No matter; the plug has been pulled and the water hath run out. (And, of course, I have a view about the role of AI in writing, which would not surprise any reader of mine.)

There is, of course, a replacement. I found out by accident. I get my books printed at Lulu.com, and a couple of weeks ago they issued an announcement for a new forum for writing a book in one month. I don’t remember its name, I just remember being mildly unsettled. I didn’t yet know of the machinations at NanoWrimo. I suspect the new forum has commercial associations. I heard someone say recently that the genius of America (and, perhaps, its fatal flaw) is that it can turn anything into a business.

Yet, I am being a little unfair. Lulu.com is a “B-Corp” organisation, which means they have a commitment to something human beyond the quest for profit. They have a commitment to human values and purposes. I acknowledge that. I accept that the new vehicle may incorporate the values of service to humanity.

What did NanoWrimo do for me?

Well, there is a prior question: why did I participate? I am not young, and I am not a novice to writing. I can sit and write, confident that something good will come of it. Initially, it was the suggestion of my youngest son. He thought it might be useful for me. At the time I was struggling with a story, or the possibility of a story. I had spent the last twenty years writing serious stuff: employment law, human resource management, practical materials on training and development. But the story lurking at the back of my mind was what to write about an earlier episode in my life.

I had been the manager of an organisation that provided disability services, and after five productive years, a group of people moved in who were corrupt and self-serving. It ended in my getting the sack. My son’s suggestion was not to write it as dry facts, but as a story. And that’s what I did. Once I had started, it poured out: 63,000 words in 30 days. It became my first ‘novel’: The Ten Thousand Things.

I bought the tee-shirt as an acknowledgment to myself, for opening a new door and walking through it.

I turned up the next year and did it again, and from that enthusiastic start I have done it ten times in all. When I did The Ten Thousand Things, I knew at the outset what the story was; I just had to tell it. In some of my following ventures, I did not know what the story was going to be about, but a theme emerged. For example, To the Bush and Back to Business was about how I left Sydney in my twenties and went to live in the bush.

I eventually came back to Sydney, after about twenty years, but I needed to think about what that was all about. Writing a book was a way for me to explore the question.

There were some years when I was working on a family history question, and the NanoWrimo project was not near enough in which to complete a book, but it gave me a very good start, and then I continued. For example, The Search for Edward Lewis, which was about my great great grandfather and my great great grandmother, Sarah Crosby, launched me into a full year of research and writing.

In the end I had a book of 194,000 words, 440 pages. I published the book and held a book launch at the Paramatta Female Orphan School, which was an enjoyable event and which was well-attended. (As a footnote, I should say I did not find the answer to one question: where and when did Edward die? And after ten years of looking, I still haven’t found the answer.)

I should talk about the rules of NanoWrimo. As the Wikipedia article states, “Since NaNoWriMo was used to get people writing, the rules were broad and straightforward”.

1.        Writing starts at 12:00 a.m. on 1 November and ends 11:59 p.m. on 30 November, local time.

2.        No one is allowed to start early and the challenge finishes exactly 30 days from that start point.

3.        Novels must reach a minimum of 50,000 words before 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.

4.        Planning and extensive notes are permitted, but no material written before the 1 November start date can go into the body of the novel.

5.        Participants' novels can be on any theme, genre of fiction, and language.

Some of the books I wrote under the NanoWrimo umbrella were books that I call Reflections on Experience, but I did not think I was bending the rules too much by doing so. There was another rule in the Wikipedia article that I did not know about, but it alludes to what I was doing:

"Rebelling" (the act of writing something besides a novel such as non-fiction, video games, scripts, or academic writing) is allowed, as NaNoWriMo is considered a self-challenge.

Clearly, I was not the only one on earth to see the value of the self-imposed timeframe that NanoWrimo gives you. However, after a few years, I felt at liberty to play with some of the other rules, especially Rules 1 and 2. I have notes on a lot of subjects, and I might decide to write an article or essay on one of these subjects. And it might then turn into a book. No Gold in Melbourne started out as a story, and The Sailor, the Baron and the Dressmaker started out as an academic paper. (Although, having said this, neither of these books was part of NanoWrimo.)

One year, I was wrestling with the idea of writing a book that could be called a memoir. I wasn’t yet convinced that I would do it, but I wanted to play with it for a while, to see how it took shape. Accordingly, I started at the beginning of October, writing in NanoWrimo fashion, that is, writing one or two thousand words every day. I thought, by the end of October I will know whether I am going to keep going or not.

I also kept track of my work, keeping an Excel file of the number of words I wrote each day. By the end of October I was convinced that I was doing something worthwhile, and I continued. By the end of November I was near finished, and I had written over 95,000 words. In addition, I had legitimately written 50,000 words in November, as my Excel file showed.

I allowed myself to purchase the tee-shirt. I published the book. It was called Long Time Approaching: An Incomplete Memoir. As with many of my books, I have not yet held a book launch event for it.

What turned out to be my last effort in NanoWrimo, in November 2024, resulted in the book, A Singular Book of Great Esteem: Living with the I Ching. It is released. I gave a talk on it for the Theosophical Society in Sydney earlier this year.

What am I going to do this November, now that there is no NanoWrimo? Well, I am a big boy. I do not need the structure, and I already own ten tee-shirts. I do have an idea in mind, based on my trip to England, Scotland and Ireland this year. I kept a diary while I was overseas, so I have a lot of material to refer to. And I am thinking about it; writing can be good to find out what you think.

Life goes on. No NanoWrimo. No, no NanoWrimo. No more, no, no, no.

Descriptions of all of my books, and links to purchase them, are on my website: www.glennmartin.com.au

Enjoy.