NaNoWriMo knows that our stories matter—and we’ve harnessed an accessible (and fun!) way of telling them. Our nonprofit programs help writers set ambitious goals, break projects up into achievable milestones, build supportive communities, and, most importantly, access the pure joy of creating.
2022 by the Numbers
- 413,295 writers participated in our programs, including 85,000 students and educators in the Young Writers Program.
- 791 volunteer Municipal Liaisons guided 671 regions on six continents.
- 1,038 libraries, bookstores, and community centers supported novelists through our Come Write In program.
- 378,264 writing goals were set and tracked using our site tools, including 83,000 on the Young Writers Program website.
- 51,670 writers met goals to become NaNoWriMo winners, including 21,326 young writers.
NaNoWriMo is proud to be primarily participant-funded and committed to financial transparency. Please see our GuideStar report or most recent 990 forms for a breakdown of our income and expenses.
The Ridiculously Oversized Challenge:
How We Support Goal-Setting and Self-Efficacy
“Go on. You are doing the hard thing. Only by going into the valley can you climb out of it—not back to the heights from which you came, not back to that beautiful idea, but to a new place, the beautiful place where your idea becomes new, because it becomes reality. If you don’t do the hard thing of descending, you will never reach it. You will never even know that it is there.”
–Matthew Salesses, 2022 NaNoWriMo Pep Talk
NaNoWriMo started as an annual challenge: to write 50,000 words of the first draft of a novel in one month, or approximately 1,667 words per day. Even today, National Novel Writing Month in November is our largest program. In 2022, 177,000 writers set November novel-writing goals with us, including 47,000 kids and teens in our Young Writers Program.
While it may seem like a massive challenge might be overwhelming, the opposite is true: NaNoWriMo helps writers to break down an ambitious goal into daily achievements, and allows them to track their own progress, while finding both public accountability and encouragement (plus some good-natured commiseration). This leads to an increased sense of self-efficacy and accomplishment.
According to our 2022 post-November NaNoWriMo survey:
- 86% of writers said they were likely to use the site to track a writing goal in the future.
- 87% of writers said NaNoWriMo had a positive impact on their life.
“Having that smaller daily goal made the larger monthly goal feel real, like a tangible thing I could actually achieve, so it lit a fire in me to actually sit down and write. At first it was just to me, to prove I could, but gradually as I got closer to my goal it became less about if I could and more that I would.”
–Christian, NaNoWriMo writer
The Young Writers Program supports kids, teens, teachers, and families with a dedicated, interactive website, youth-friendly resources, and NaNoWriMo’s structured writing challenges. Young writers set their own ambitious but achievable goals, and are given permission to write—not for a teacher or parent—but for themselves. In 2022, over 85,000 people participated in our programs through the Young Writers Program website. (More about the Young Writers Program’s impact.)
According to our 2022 post-November YWP surveys:
- 80% of teachers said NaNoWriMo helped their students learn what they can accomplish when they are determined.
- 78% of young writers said NaNoWriMo made them excited about writing.
- 76% of young writers said NaNoWriMo helped them write a story they cared about.
In addition to our flagship November event, NaNoWriMo offers other opportunities throughout the year for writers to tackle projects that matter to them. Camp NaNoWriMo, a community writing challenge in April and July, allows all participants (not just those in the Young Writers Program) to set personalized goals and write alongside a community of 20-30,000 writers. Additionally, both websites guide participants to set individual goals throughout the year and take advantage of our approachable resources, author partners, online events, and progress-tracking tools.
“This is my second year completing NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program and it feels so empowering! When you write your final word it feels like you’ve climbed a mountain. This year instead of seven thousand, I completed fifteen thousand words, and next year I hope to do thirty thousand words. NaNoWriMo has helped bring me confidence and share my story with the world. I’d have never found this passion for writing if not for NaNoWriMo.”
–L. Bubolz, YWP writer
Our Stories Matter:
How We Help People Use Their Voices
“Believe in your deep, true voice and what you’re aiming for. And in order for you to believe that, you have to stare into the mess. You have to acknowledge to yourself that you will fail—we all fail— and you will try again because you are the only person who can tell your own story.”
–Alaya Dawn Johnson, 2016 NaNoWriMo Pep Talk
NaNoWriMo believes in the transformational power of creativity and also recognizes that this power has been historically and systematically denied to many people based on (among other things) race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class background, and ability. One of our most important works-in-progress at NaNoWriMo is creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community of writers.
We’re starting with a focus on racial equity in an attempt to address our legacy as a white-centered organization. Explore our strategy and tactics.
We’d like to celebrate progress in the following areas, while also committing to continued improvement. The following statistics compare our results according to recent surveys with the Lee & Low Books’ 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey that measures the publishing industry at-large.
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Gender identity
3% of NaNoWriMo writers identified as transgender men vs. fewer than 1% in the Lee & Low survey. 19% identified as genderqueer, nonbinary, or gender non-conforming vs. 1% in the Lee & Low survey.
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Sexual orientation
Only 37% of NaNoWriMo writers identified as heterosexual or straight vs. 81% in the Lee & Low survey.
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Disability
32% of NaNoWriMo writers identified as disabled vs. 11% in the Lee & Low survey.
“NaNoWriMo YWP helped me to create goals and stick to them. The program let my imagination run as free as I wanted to, without any barriers or school topics blocking me in. Honestly, these words aren’t ‘just words.’ They are pieces of myself.”
–Calla C., YWP writer
Additional highlights from 2022:
- We hosted 17 virtual community meet-ups for Writers of Color and 8 for LGBTQIA+ writers.
- In partnership with PEN America Prison and Justice Writing, NaNoWriMo sent free resources to 22 incarcerated writers participating in NaNoWriMo. Read more about our partnership.
- We sent 30 free classroom sets of Young Novelist Workbooks and 51 bundles of NaNoWriMo noveling books to teachers working in schools that receive school-wide Title 1 funds, as well as supported 12 Title 1 classrooms in pursuing publishing projects to celebrate student voices.
Building New Words—On and Off the Page
“Whatever you think you are, you are more than that. You possess a fearsome array of skills and abilities, and the most satisfying of these may be completely unknown to you now.”
–Chris Baty (founder), 2008 NaNoWriMo Pep Talk
NaNoWriMo encourages people to “novel.” Yes, we use it as a verb. Yes, we made up that use. Noveling is an act of pure, inspired, messy creation; it forces people to sit up, create, and engage with the ideas they’ve received. And our participants who novel with us over years expand that critical engagement into civic engagement with their local communities.
In 2022, around 47% of NaNoWriMo writers and 59% of Young Writers Program educators had participated in our writing programs for two or more years. These returning writers are the ones who decide to give back to their communities. Through our volunteer program, engaged writers are given the title of Municipal Liaison and tasked with building writing communities in their local areas. They are trained to welcome new participants, to host events, to consider internal biases in order to build more inclusive groups, and are put in touch with local community spaces participating in our Come Write In program. In 2022, 791 volunteers coordinated local writing events in 671 communities around the world.
“NaNoWriMo changed my perspective on writing and on its community! What used to be a lonely and one-man project suddenly became a group work where we all supported each other throughout and even after the event! I got to fulfill goals that were previously out of reach! Thank you!”
–Evan E., NaNoWriMo writer
Writing Wildly, Joyfully, in Huge and Bounding Strokes
“On good days you’ll fly higher than a peregrine cruising for dinner, on bad days someone will have to scrape you off the floor with a spatula.”
–Robin McKinley, 2009 NaNoWriMo Pep Talk
One impact that’s harder to measure, and often underestimated in terms of importance, is simply this: joy. Also known as: fun. Also known as: the giddy feeling that overtakes you at one in the morning when you realize you’ve been lost deep inside the wonders of your own imagination. The goal of NaNoWriMo isn’t to publish (though some writers do); it also isn’t to get better at writing (though most writers do that, too—it’s hard not to get better with so many hours of sustained practice). The goal is to make space for your creative self to flourish, and, in doing so, leave the world a better, more joyful place.
⭐️ A few more wild and joyful words:
- “I was asked ‘Why is writing 50K words in a month satisfying?’ It is satisfying because you don’t rewrite the first scene over and over again, like any perfectionist tends to do. Instead you move whizzingly along and discover the end of your tale. And enroute you experience twists, turns, and push back from fascinating characters. Your story makes you giggle. Your story brings you to tears. And you wouldn’t have these emotions if you spent the same amount of time wordsmithing one chapter. Even if your story is messy, and no one else experiences your imagery and ideas at this zeroth stage draft, for the author writing these 50,000 words is profoundly as much fun as reading a good book. —Jayanne English
- “I was very hesitant to write at first – and even after I started, I guess I felt sort of ashamed of it and kept it a secret. But then I stumbled upon YWP NaNo, and it was very fun and exhilarating, trying to reach my daily word count every day, seeing the ‘At this rate, you’ll finish on…’ date become closer and closer, and most of all, at the end, realizing how much I’d accomplished in such short of a time. NaNo helped me come out of my writing shell and I believe that I’m now a much better writer than I was a month ago!” —Abby W.
- “Before NaNoWriMo, my writing was extremely stilted and there was no flow or creativity. This was because I couldn’t stop editing as I wrote. Once I found NaNo, I took the advice of several of the NaNo peeps to just turn off my inner editor and not get hung up on sticking to my outline or anticipated structure. This allowed me the freedom to go down a rabbit trail or two or three and see where they led. I found by allowing myself the freedom to not worry about punctuation, tight outline details, spelling, etc., that my creativity literally exploded and flowed like a rushing river.” —Kathy Adair
- “I have never felt more accomplished than I have felt this November. I managed to write 19,000 words in the span of a month, and I have become attached to the characters I have been designing for so long! I finally put this story of mine into words, something I have struggled to do for what must have been 3 years. Honestly, this program has made me a better writer, and gave me a reason to be proud of myself!” —Tristan G.
