I wrote recently about the outcry against NaNoWriMo's endorsement of AI and fallout within the community. I'm honestly not sure NaNoWriMo will come back from this. After the crisis last year, it seems like the staff has dwindled to potentially just one person, the Interim Executive Director. That could have been survivable with time and a dedicated new staff, but the organization has felt badly mishandled this year, culminating in the endorsement of AI.
So if you are feeling like you can't in good conscience participate in NaNoWriMo again, and are mourning the loss of that experience and community, you are not alone. Thankfully we, the community, can refuse to let NaNoWriMo take us down with it. Here are a few resources you can use to replace what NaNoWriMo offered.
The Local NaNoWriMo Community
NaNoWriMo has been through some major changes right now. MLs (Municipal Liaisons, the ones responsible for actually running each region) have been disbanded and are awaiting reinstatement as HQ (somday?) implements a more structured volunteer system, complete with background checks and ID verification. While that was supposed to be implemented this year, there doesn't seem to be any movement on that front.
As a result, many MLs were faced with determining how best to contact their region and keep it together even before the AI endorsement got everyone all riled up. We no longer have the ability to email our regions, so we're having to depend on our unofficial channels for reaching participants. If you know your region has a Facebook page or group, a Discord server, or if they tend to use the region page's chat box (which is still active) on the NaNoWriMo website, check in! If you had contact information for other wrimos, reach out! Share information and get in touch with your MLs in any way possible. Chances are your MLs are stressing about how to contact everyone, and one more person making contact would help to ease their worries.
It's important to remember that the community is still there, and there's no reason we have to give it up. For now my region has opted to continue doing the noveling challenge in November, so that we can hold events for wrimos who are still participating in the official event, as well as rebels who are moving away from the organization. For us, the important thing is to keep the community together, as we've always had a very active community in our region.
Online Word Count Trackers
I have not deleted my account on NaNoWriMo's website for several reasons, but I haven't used their word count tracker since news of the AI announcement broke. I love having a word count tracker to show me my progress, so this was one of the first things I wanted to replace after making a plan for our community.
I've done a variety of other things in the past, back in the days when the NaNoWriMo word count trackers weren't available year round, such as reporting word count in blog posts and using this simple word count meter to give a visual display. However I desperately wanted something better, something I didn't have to generate the code for and insert manually every time.
This time I found WriteTrack, an impressive system that enables you to create multiple projects, have friends on the site, and a variety of other NaNoWriMo-esque features. I especially love the fact that it displays everything in a calendar, with updated word count goals for every day based on the words written so far. In fact, it exports to a Google Calendar, which you can add to your account so that your word count goal shows at the top of every day's events. And they update, too!
There's also a link to a progress bar that you can share with people. I've been trying to get the embedding feature to work, but without much luck yet. Click here to see my progress bar for Amnesia and the sequel (all rolled into one word count for now).
WriteTrack is free, but there's a donation button. If I keep using it, I'll donate what I would have given to NaNoWriMo, as a thank-you for being there for us when NaNoWriMo failed us so spectacularly. So far it's looking like I will be using it, as I really like the features.
Write-Ins
You know, there's nothing that says NaNoWriMo owns the concept of write-ins. If you find, like I do, that regular write-ins help you to keep you motivated and productive, set some up of your own! Even if it's just you and one other local writing friend, pick a time and place and start meeting regularly to get some words in. If you do it in a place where other writers frequent, or if you put the word out among writing friends and the local NaNoWriMo community that you have a year-round write-in, most likely you'll get new people joining. We've had some people only come once and decide it's not for them, but we've also gained others who come every time.
Online Community
If in-person write-ins aren't your thing, there are still plenty of ways to get words written with other writers. Our region of NaNoWriMo has an established Discord server that sees activity year-round, and we've even added a bot to the server for running virtual writing sprints. Other platforms can also be useful for supporting virtual writing communities in lieu of NaNoWriMo. For instance, you could create a Facebook group and use group chats or video events to run virtual write-ins or writing sprints.
If nothing else, NaNoWriMo has shown us that writing does not have to be a solitary thing, and that relying on a social writing community can actually be beneficial. But that doesn't mean the community has to be NaNoWriMo's. Even if you're uneasy about participating in NaNoWriMo after the AI endorsement or the other scandals, don't give up on writing or the community! Find or build your own community.
I'll post with more alternative resources if I find anything else worthwhile. In the meantime, feel free to friend me on WriteTrack! I'm KatharineSwan, no spaces.
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