National Novel Writing MonthReviews 9

The programmers who put this website together were clearly functionally incapable. They need to be fired and replaced with monkeys, because the monkeys would do a better job. This website is nearly unusable. It crashes. It glitches. It freezes. And it will randomly lose any and all information that you attempt to input. My computer has been attempting to load the stats page for nearly ten minutes now, and it refuses to load.
And they have the gall to ask us to give them money. Are you serious? Clearly you have done nothing with the money we've given you so far! Why would we give you anything? Every fellow writer that I know has stopped using their website because it is impossible to use. It has been broken for about two years now, and they refuse to do anything about it. I have no respect for a company that won't even put the base level of effort in.

I participated in NaNoWriMo once in the early 2000's and enjoyed it greatly. I was inspired by the challenge and the community. People read what I wrote and gave feedback, and vice versa,

Remembering my first experience fondly, I decided to participate again this year and was very disappointed. It is no longer about creativity or community, but about commercialism. They sign you up for an email which they explicitly state you cannot opt out of, and which they use to solicit donations and purchases of their "swag" on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, there were no communications whasoever from anyone running NaNo, or any fellow participants, welcoming me or asking me about what I was writing. I posted some writing and no one commented. I tried reaching out several times to various parties and received zero response. I stopped updating my word count about halfway through the month, and that was that. I continued to get the solicitation emails, and never could get off the list.

After NaNo was over, I received a link to give feedback. Some of the form fields asked me about my experience with various entities who were in charge of creating community and shepherding writers along. Um, huh? I literally didn't even know these folks existed until I saw them referenced on the form. No one at all ever reached out to me, welcomed me, said anything about my writing, or made me feel like I even existed for that matter.

This was an invalidating, lonely, disappointing experience and I will have nothing to do with NaNo again.

I love the concept of writing a novel in a month (and I'm well on my way), but the NaNoWriMo community is comprised of people with low morals and a vague sense of right and wrong. They produced a pep talk by an author who used the word "suck" ten times, and when a few of us complained, we were lynched by people who thought we were prudes. Even the moderators defended the trashy, no-class pep talk. Considering the work they do with kids, it was surprising they'd even think such a pep talk had merit. (It was all about how writing sucks--and that's not my word choice. I never use that word.)

I try to participate every year and the event is so much fun. The forums are pretty active and everyone is very supportive. Lots of great freebies and sponsor discounts too. Highly recommend.

I try to participate every year, and it's hard work, but it's so fun! It really helps me get back in the groove of writing, even if I don't finish the whole event.

This site is pure love.

Love of millions of people with the same objetive than you, being the creators or the people who participate in the events. A diverse community who will support you, give you ideas and prep talks. And each and every one of them wants to achieve something.

The forums offers help of other people who is writing, ideas, games and suppurort in general. The website loads fast, is nice to the view and gives you a sensation of community, because this is it. The cost of participating is zero (sí, cero), but if you want to, you can donate or buy something nice for you (or a friend of yours).

An excellent choice if you want to complete something you wanted to compete years ago, or if it´s your first time writing a novel. I recommend it to everyone who tries to tell a story in their own words.