bedes | NaNoWriMo Alternatives

You'll recall I previously posted about being interested in NaNoWriMo alternatives. As such, I've gone through some of the most commonly-recommended ones, and written up a list of relevant information! This was originally written just for myself, but I thought it might be useful to others, too.

I considered:

Timing
Professionalism
Inclusiveness
Community
Gamification
AI stance
And anything else that may be interesting or relevant!

So, here is the information I've gathered!

Get Your Words Out

An all-year event
Big community, has been going since 2009
Largely hosted on Dreamwidth, with blogs elsewhere
Newsletters
Check-ins
Challenges
Offers support and reminders to take care of your mental health
Members-only, cannot join late
Inclusive of both original work and fanfic, and counts all fiction, including scripts, poetry and song lyrics
Allows a variety of wordcount pledges, and habit pledges
Anti-AI

Shut Up and Write

Provides the community but not the gamification
"Commit to writing with others for an hour a week and find the accountability, focus, and structure you need to achieve your writing goals."
In-person and online hangouts for you to write with others
Writing challenges available
No wordcount goal or pledges, check-ins, etc

A Round of Words in 80 Days

"The writing challenge that knows you have a life"
4 rounds a year, each running for 80 days
Anything measurable can be counted as a goal
You have to post your goal on a blog
Check-ins twice a week
You can join a round late
Unsure of how long its been running
Begins the first Monday in January, April, July, and October

Fiction Frenzy Writing Challenge

Been going since 2022
Participants set their own goal
Fall event is October 15-November 15 (missing both US and Canadian Thanksgiving), plus spring and summer events
Seems to mostly take place on Discord
Has a newsletter

Writing Month

Was made directly in response to NaNoWriMo's bullshit and is, thus, anti-AI
Goes through November
Website is not yet up (as of October 19, 2024), but the person behind it is coding furiously and is giving active updates on its progress
A number of main wordcount goal categories, plus the ability to set a custom goal (50k for a novel, 20k for a novella, 5 short stories of 2k word length…)
Seems promising, but there's not much info yet

Rough Draft Month

Goes through November
4 tiers of goals (60K, 50K, 30K, and Flex, where Flex means either a custom word count, or a project that isn't a novel, like lines for poetry, scenes for screenplays, panels for graphic novels, etc)
Tracks progress through trackbear.app, which allows there to be a leaderboard system
Discord server
Curated writing playlists
Email newsletter
Ability to earn achievements in the works
Challenge maps with original art
Seems already quite put-together and professional, despite being only made this year
It being made only this year means that it is extremely likely in direct response to NaNoWriMo's bullshit and is, thus, anti-AI

For myself, personally, I'm very interested in Rough Draft Month. I prioritize gamification and inclusiveness, and an anti-AI stance, so those aspects being present there makes it very promising for me. But I'm not going to tell you which to look into! I listed everything out like this partially so you can make a choice based off of what you prioritize in a challenge month.

NaNoWriMo Alternatives

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