Twelve years of Nanowrimo

04 Nov, 2025

I'm not going to get into the Nanowrimo drama. There's Nanowrimo the concept and Nanowrimo the organisation and while the latter was fatally flawed and had been for a long time, the concept is a beautiful one. I'm talking about the idea.

Nanowrimo (Wikipedia link for those who need it) has never been for everyone but it was never supposed to be. If you think it's useless or silly or unproductive to write a novel in a month that's fine! Don't write a novel in a month. I understand that for a lot of people it doesn't suit them. But for a lot of people it is exactly the permission or the impetus they need.

Nano had this attitude of writing with wild abandon. Run whooping through the valley of your imagination. I have that on a sticker. For me that's a really good message. One I need in order to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and just have fun and write.

More on perfectionism: the Nano necessity of 1667 or however many words a day means sometimes writing under less than ideal circumstances - and realising circumstances do not need to be ideal in order to write.

A month is enough time to write 50k or more but not long enough to worry about wasting. So you spend all your free time writing a novel and it was awful - it was only a month. On the plus side, you wrote a novel!

One time a bunch of us Nano people were at a talk at a book fair thing. Some guy said writing a novel is two years' miserable work. We all looked at each other. A whole lot of proof to the contrary.

Obviously it can take two years. It can take a decade. More! It doesn't have to, though, and honestly I think it's a bit irresponsible (gatekeepy?) to go around telling wannabe writers this is going to be a two-year misery-inducing draughty-garret endeavour.

Any month can be a Nano. I've done several outside of the official. It's now such a well-established idea in writing you're going to find other options probably any given month and just a widespread understanding of a challenge like this.

I learned so much about how I write from the concentrated practice and also the tracking I used to do during Nano. I know my words per hour range, my limits, my rhythm. I don't track anything about my writing any more - other than, did I do it. Because I've got all that from Nano.

There's this idea that people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year (or month). I hate to be all productivity bro about it but Nano really shows how a little goes a long way.

Another big part of Nano for me: friends! In-person meetings were a great time and I made actual year-round not-just-November friends in both locations. In fact, the only friends I made in London were my Nano friends.

In-person I learned a lot about myself in these situations, running events, and building a community. I saw the different ways MLs took this on and approached it. What I liked, or didn't, about those approaches. A friend and I co-hosted a local London meetup which was a great and also instructive experience.

It's a common issue for a lot of writers feeling isolated or lonely. Challenges are a great way to meet people and commiserate and do sprints and all that good stuff. I've put a list of some at the end of the post. A lot of local Nano groups have transformed into general writing groups. Your town probably has a writing group. People like writing. Find them.

A little history of twelve years of Nano

852,759 words.
2009 to 2018, 2020, and 2021.
The first one. In 2009. I hadn't written in any real sense for easily five years. And there was such a sense of achievement. I keep coming back to the story. Trying to figure it out. And I think I will. I think the idea is a keeper. But more than that, it gave me confidence.
In 2013 we moved to London. Which meant leaving all my Nano friends. But making more in London.
The longest one. 125k. That was a lot. It was also really good fun and had a good structure. That I later decided I didn't like. This is what got me switched over to a Colemak keyboard because the strain was real.
The handwritten year. Horrible! Got forty-six words over and immediately stopped right there. I kept count by counting the words on a page, averaging them, recalibrating, all sorts of nonsense.
After ten years, in 2019 I skipped it. I was moving house, there was too much going on.
By 2022 I had been writing every day for two and a half years. I had other projects on the go I didn't want to pause. I felt like I had got what I needed from the process.

Some more structured options to fill the void

And basically any business catering to writers has graciously stepped in to use this opportunity to ~~flog their product~~ support the community.

As I said before though, there are tonnes of smaller options, more hidden options, local options, for finding people. It might just take a bit of searching. If there's nothing that suits... Start your own. All these things only exist because someone started them.

In conclusion! Hugely grateful for the positive parts of Nano, my experience, all the amazing organisers and municipal liaisons, the people I've met. The spirit of Nanowrimo lives on.