AI is responsible for a lot of bad things in this current age, and it is not getting any better.

National Novel Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing challenge that takes place every November in which writers must write a novel of at least 50,000 words, the minimum for a novel, during that month.

It was created by Chris Baty in 1999, where it was held in July with 21 people signing up for it. The following year, in 2000, he moved it to November. The official nonprofit was founded in 2006 with the increasing popularity of the challenge.

It was a popular challenge and one that saw the creations of books like Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

Alongside the challenge, a non-profit charity was set up with the goal of providing support and motivation for the writers taking part in said challenge. It would help create groups so writers could meet up in person or online to support each other.

It was an amazing charity that helped thousands of writers complete their goals and create their novels within the month. One great feature was its words tracker, where you kept track of your progress and it told you how many words you needed to write each day to achieve your goal.

Then last year, it all came crashing down.

In 2024, after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which were mainly about the use of AI in writers’ rooms and to create digital extras and actors for roles, the foundation released an article about their stance on AI in writing. They condemned the criticism of AI in writing and called it abysmal and classist. They also started being sponsored by ProWritingAid, an AI writing tool meant to help writers.

This support, along with the new sponsor, drew criticism from the writing community. Many people expressed frustration and stated they were no longer partaking in the challenge, as well as board members, author Daniel Older, and Maureen Johnson, resigning their positions over this support.

Along with board members resigning and what seemed like the whole writing community’s withdrawal of their support and participation, the organisation lost many of their sponsors which severely impacted their financial position.

After the backlash, the organisation put out a statement stating their comments about classism and ableism were relevant from bullying online and they also stated their views on AI was not the complete representation of the whole organisation, however this did not help with the backlash.

In March 2025, the director of NaNoWriMo, Kilby Blades, put out a video announcing the closure of the organisation due to financial difficulties and lack of community support.

This doesn’t stop the challenge from still taking place in 2026, or 2025. This is only the end of the organisation.

I will be taking the challenge on in November so wish me luck.