NaNoWriMo Alternatives

[bedes]

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.

Comments

[bedes]

Thank you!!! And I hope so (re: people finding it useful) :D!