Write a First Draft in One Month?? NaNoWriMo is Gone, but Writers Have Choices.
New Groups and Opportunities
Mid-October has been the time each year for me to gear up for National Novel Writing Month. I’d make an outline or at minimum a plan of what I intended to accomplish over 30 days.
But all things come to an end sometime, and this year it is the NaNoWriMo Organization.
After a twenty-year run They’ve ceased operations. A nonprofit since 2006, NaNoWriMo announced their closure was due to financial difficulties precipitated by controversy on the way their organization was handling various allegations. To read more, The Guardian published a comprehensive article on the topic.
Plenty of platforms, coaches, and writing gurus have jumped in to fill the void. Immediately, I chose to sign up for Novel November offered by ProWritingAid because they seemed to provide the encouragement tools I’d liked with NaNoWriMo- a chart to track word count, badges to congratulate myself, writing circles, pep talks.
And then I got a notice from Sub Club which I follow on Substack, that they were offering a free November novel writing group with guidance to commence a rough draft called “First Draft November.” An hour later one of my writer friends emailed me she was signing up.
Decisions. Decisions. In all fairness, there are even more choices and I post them here.
First Draft November: offered by Sub Club on Substack, meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays provides prompts to help writers get started on their novel.
Amherst Writers and Editors: FREE. You can sign up to write with a community of writers for one hour each weekday through the month of November. If you want real time comraderie, this might be the choice for you.
Reedsy’s Novel Sprint follows the same timeline and word count target of NaNoWriMo, while adding substantial prizes and support, as much as $5,000 to the first-place-winner of the best novel draft. Looking for a contest with prize money? This might be the place for you.
ProWritingAid’s Novel November combines the classic NaNoWriMo structure with workshops and a robust support system. Commit to writing 1,667 words per day, track your progress via the Novel November dashboard and receive badges as you progress through the challenge.
November Challenge offers dedicated space for authors, poets, and storytellers who prioritize thoughtful, deliberate creativity and no use of AI. Part of the Order of the Written Word (O2W), they offer three different challenges:
The Novelist’s Initiation: Write 30,000 words of a novel or complete the first draft of a new one.
The Trials of Verse & Vignette: Create 15 poems or 8 short stories (each between 1,000–10,000 words).
The Refinement Ritual: Revise an existing manuscript, whether it’s a novel, story collection, or poetry collection.
To take part, you’ll need to join their Discord community, where you can track progress, connect with other writers, and access event resources.
Which group is right for you?
Try more than one out, if you dare. I’ve written about my experiences with NaNoWriMo in the past, and how I’ve found it to be productive.
Another way to incentivize yourself to complete pages, is to join or form a writer’s critique group. Accountability and deadlines keep you focused.
Thank you for reading this week’s post. To read more blog posts, stories and essays — sign up for FREE to receive an email each time I publish and follow me on Medium, Substack or WordPress. Check out my chapbook of flash memoir and poetry below.
Thank you for supporting human writers.