A Beloved Writing Organization Appears to Be Destroying Itself for the Dumbest Reason
Reading Time: 5 minutesBestselling authors are distancing themselves from NaNoWriMo after the nonprofit released a statement that appeared to endorse the use of bots to write novels., National Novel Writing Month: Inside the A.I. controversy tearing a writing community apart.
It was an emotionally dark and stormy night in 2020 when I had the urge to write a novel. I’d been having panic attacks. To work through it, I decided to write a novel about an isolated mom and a monster in the woods, along with therapy. So that November, I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is also a nonprofit organization that encourages creative writing through a variety of events, including its most famous and titular program where participants attempt to write a complete novel (or 50,000 words) in the month of November.
I loved the ‘flow state’ of writing that came about as a result of participating. I hyperfixated on my project, typing late into the night, no longer feeling isolated by the pandemic, but connected to something outside my old little world. At the end of the month, I’d finished the first draft. It was my first experience with NaNoWriMo, but it wasn’t my last. I’m also a teacher, and have frequently recommended the flagship program to my students. Despite all of this, after everything I’ve learned over the past week, I will no longer be using or recommending NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo has had a slew of criticisms thrown its way due to its statement on the use of generative A.I. in writing that was released last week; it initially stated that A.I. can be a useful tool for those who are disabled or from marginalized communities who would otherwise not have access to the inner circle of the publishing industry. After the backlash, though, the organization amended the statement several times to try to clarify their position, saying there are ‘bad actors in the AI space,’ but that they find ‘the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic.’ At the time of reporting, the page has been updated a third time, removing the initial verbiage, keeping the text of the first edit, and linking to a letter to ‘speak to those mistakes.’
Writers were not impressed. Several authors, such as Daniel José Older and Maureen Johnson, publicly stepped down from the nonprofit’s board. Other prominent writers like Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Erin Morgenstern, both of whom found success after participating in NaNoWriMo, publicly spoke out about the A.I. stance. (Ironically, the targeted ad that kept popping up under Twitter comments on this topic when I searched for it was for an A.I. service with the tagline ‘AI won’t replace you, but a person using AI will,’ which sounds like the robot overlord version of ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.’)
This isn’t the only controversy that NaNoWriMo has ever attracted. However, with the advent of generative A.I. and its threat to creatives ranging from writers and artists to filmmakers, the decision by the organization to seemingly endorse the usage of bots in writing has led to one of the biggest backlashes against the nonprofit yet.
The organization cites a variety of issues including systemic discrimination as reasons why writers should be allowed to use A.I. without judgment. NaNoWriMo also argues that A.I. can be an adaptation tool for people with disabilities. So, at a glance, the NaNoWriMo statement seems to be coming from an inclusive place, citing that A.I. can help address classism, ableism, and general access issues.
However, the writers in their community read between the lines—and the blowback was swift and fierce. Authors quickly took to social media to share their thoughts or distance themselves from the organization. Morgenstern, whose breakout success The Night Circus began as a NaNoWriMo project, posted her desire on Bluesky for the organization to stop using her work on promotional materials when she couldn’t contact NaNoWriMo directly. Mexican Gothic author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a past participant, posted several threads on Twitter/X.
Daniel José Older, author and lead story architect of the multimedia project Star Wars: The High Republic, posted a series of increasingly frustrated, pun-based tweets on X, and released a statement on his website saying NaNoWriMo’s ‘position on AI is vile, craven, and unconscionable.’ This issue strikes at a soft spot for Older, who told me over email that he discovered that 11 of his works have been used to train A.I. via a database available through the Atlantic.
Author Maureen Johnson posted on various social media sites about the blowup, asking NaNoWriMo to remove her from the board and warning others that their work might be used to train A.I.—a fear that was shared by many writers in the wake of the controversy. However, there’s little evidence so far that the organization is doing this. The official NaNoWriMo challenge doesn’t require writers to input text, thereby preventing the nonprofit from using it. However, it’s worth noting that the organization’s Young Writers Program, which supports teachers and students in participating in the flagship program and with activities throughout the year, does use an online writing space which stores these youth writers’ words.
One of the reasons NaNoWriMo’s statement struck a chord with so many writers is that many believe generative A.I. ‘is terrible for humanity and it is terrible for the environment,’ Older explained. ‘It kills jobs and it kills plants and animals. Also, it makes cursed, soulless garbage.’
Perhaps the part of the original statement that writers took issue with the most was NaNoWriMo promoting A.I. as a means to fight classism. In his statement, Older said that the exploitation of ‘the language of social justice to defend their ghoulish position’ was particularly offensive to him as someone ‘who has spent my whole writing career fighting to make the bookshelf more honestly represent the world we live in.’
Writers in the disabled community also took great offense at the statement—especially in light of instances in which A.I. companies used the writing and books of disabled writers to train A.I. On X, multihyphenate Sarah Salcedo said: ‘Disabled writers may use accommodating tools in our work, but it’s not the same as technology that steals other’s work & destroys the climate.’
The ‘general access issues’ cited in NaNoWriMo’s statement also cannot be fixed with A.I. ‘It’s pretty insulting to imply that the only way members of marginalized communities can get their foot in the door is through the use of a plagiarism machine,’ author Cass Morris said in a statement. Meanwhile, Johnson told me over the phone: ‘I don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about,’ because claiming that A.I. can help get people published doesn’t make sense.
‘It was a good thing, and they wrecked it,’ Johnson added. ‘It’s a bad sign when you build a good community and you sell it. You sell out your community.’
Of course, writers will go on without NaNoWriMo. Many have publicly deleted their accounts on the organization’s website and now are looking to form new writing communities. NaNoWriMo at its heart encourages people to ‘set aside a time to do a daily writing practice, to push through barriers of self-doubt, fear, boredom, writer’s block, and to fearlessly write badly,’ Johnson said. She added that promoting the use of A.I. is ‘taking away the most important part and replacing it with something weird and terrible because you’ve gotten sponsorship, and I want nothing to do with it.’
Generative A.I. steals creativity. At worst, it creates actual harm ecologically, financially, and by rapidly spreading misinformation. While the technology has some worthy use cases, the danger it poses outweighs any of the benefits for many. So, even if the likes of NaNoWriMo decide to embrace A.I., writers are confident in their old-school method of sitting down and grinding out a story, one human-written word at a time. ‘A.I. is another clown-shaped bubble that is about to pop, and go the way of NFTs,’ Older said. ‘It can’t happen fast enough.’
Ref: slate
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