By VANESSA SKILDUM
Back in March, the news broke that the not-for-profit National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) was officially shutting down. The organization had been struggling financially for some time, along with a lack of participation and uproar over its stance on artificial intelligence (AI), which ultimately led to the decision.
NaNoWriMo shutting down left a hole in the writing community, leaving half a million writers who participated without a space to go. The UK-based organization ProWritingAid, a former partner of NaNoWriMo, announced it is reviving the event in 2025 under a new name: Novel November.
“The spirit is the same, which is that we just want to encourage as many people to write and help bring as many books into the world as possible, and really celebrate human creativity and writers,” said Hayley Milliman, ProWritingAid’s Director of Community.
Much like its predecessor, Novel November challenges writers to write a total of 50,000 words over the entire month of November, equating to 1,667 words per day.
To aid with the challenge, a dashboard for word count tracking, badges for achievements, community forums, and spaces where writers can chat with each other will be available. They will be hosting daily word sprints, short, timed writing sessions that can vary in length, where the goal is to write as many words as possible without editing. Writers can join a Zoom call and participate with writers from all over the world.
There will be an opportunity to participate in live, in-person writing sprints during Author Nation 25, the largest indie publishing conference, taking place in Las Vegas on Nov. 4, 5, and 6. This in-person event is similar to the former “Night of Writing Dangerously” hosted by NaNoWriMo until 2018.
Additionally, ProWritingAid is keeping NaNoWriMo’s “Preptober” phase, where writers would plan and plot their novel, and an editing and post-writing phase in December to help writers learn about publishing and the editing world.
“We are going to keep sessions for those,” said Milliman. “We are just doing a ton more.” ProWritingAid has over 150 events planned during the three months. Writing mentors and best-selling authors, including Madeline Miller, Tomi Adeyemi, and Rufi Thorpe, among many others, will be available to assist writers during October and November.
One key difference is the integration of ProWritingAid into writers’ everyday lives. “As a software product, we have lots of different ways where you can work, where you write. So that allows you to word count track in Scrivener, in Microsoft Word, things like that, without having to go back to the dashboard if you don’t want to.”
ProWritingAid is a self-writing and editing software that provides in-depth feedback through features including a grammar checker, paraphrasing tool, reports, line and story editing. Some of its more advanced features, including chapter critique and manuscript analysis, utilize AI.
AI and its use in writing is a highly debated topic in the writing world, and many authors feel passionately one way or the other. Some users had previously expressed concerns about NaNoWriMo’s partnership with ProWritingAid.
When asked about concerns surrounding AI and its features, Milliman said, “Our premise is really simple: We are here to empower writers, we are not here to replace them, and we don’t believe that AI should or can replace writers.
“None of the features that exist for Novel November, none of the tools that we are creating, none of the events utilize AI in any way. So, Novel November specifically is totally free for everybody to use… It’s really focused on events and learning. And all of those types of things.”
Novel November is entirely free to sign up for, and ProWritingAid is donating $2 for every winner to Room To Read, a charity that focuses on bringing literacy to children in historically low-income communities. More information about the event as a whole can be found on prowritingaid.com.
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