Okay, so I’ve kind of been caught with my pants down.
Here’s what happened.
I’m a big believer in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). If you’re not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s a CONCEPT to help writers finish a long-form, narrative work of fiction. You are challenged to write 50,000 words in the the thirty days of November. I can tell you, both from personal experience and from having taught other writers over the years, the most difficult part of writing your first novel or novella is finishing it.
Amie Kaufman, the brilliant co-author of the Illuminae trilogy—one of my favorites in the cannon of great YA science fiction—once noted that the distance between writing zero books and one book is infinitely greater than the distance between writing one book and two books. She said this at a book event in a Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver nearly a decade ago, and it stuck with me, largely because it’s true.
It’s difficult to develop the discipline necessary to push your story forward, to avoid looking back and falling into a bottomless well of editing what’s already on the page. NaNoWriMo, the CONCEPT, forces a writer to stay on track, to advance the story, to finish. But NaNoWriMo is not just a concept. It’s also an organization. I’ll be honest, until this week I knew next to nothing about NaNoWriMo the organization. It always seemed like a bad idea to me, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like people putting a box around an idea—making rules about something that needs no rules—that is beautiful in its simplicity. And yes, both rock and roll and NaNoWriMo (the CONCEPT!) are beautiful. I wrote a book—a still-unsold middle grade that I really love—during NaNoWriMo in 2021. It was a great experience.
So, how did I get caught with my pants down?
In addition to writing for fun (and occasionally money), I have taught writing students in a variety of ways of the years: Guest speaker spots at high schools or community colleges, one-on-one coaching, and two courses I posted to Skillshare, a wonderful community learning site. With NaNoWriMo, the CONCEPT, coming up soon, I decided to promote one of those Skillshare courses (20 Tips for New Writers—click the link and you can watch the course for free), and couched the promotion as an opportunity of prep for NaNoWriMo…the CONCEPT. But I can see now, the promotion didn’t distinguish between NaNoWriMo the organization and NaNoWriMo the really good idea.
Little did I know—and yeah, shame on me for not knowing—NaNoWriMo the organization has been in hot water in recent months. The issue was an official statement from NaNoWriMo supporting the use of generative AI in creative writing. (They sort of rolled it back, but also sort of didn’t.) NaNoWriMo claims Artificial Intelligence can be a valid tool as it helps marginalized communities. Uh, no. Not only is it (IMHO) wrongheaded and monolithic to suggest marginalized communities need extra help writing, generative AI is a form of plagiarism that is just not okay in any circumstance. (AI poses dangers on several other levels, but we’ll stick to writing here.)
The bottom line is that I categorically disagree with NaNoWriMo the organization, while still believing in NaNoWriMo the CONCEPT. I’ve ended the promotion, and I stand with those who stand against the use of generative AI in writing. No good can come of it.
Pants back up.