November without NaNoWriMo: what's running this year
-
R. S. Breed Founder
NaNoWriMo shut down in 2025, but half my feed this week is people prepping for November anyway, and a few asking "is that still a thing?". It is, just not under that name. What I could find, as at 12 October 2026 (check each one's own page before you sign up, rules change):
Novel November (ProWritingAid). The closest thing to the old one: 1 to 30 November in your local time, 50,000 words, free to join with a ProWritingAid account. They've been running "Preptober" through October. https://prowritingaid.com/novel-november
Reedsy Novel Sprint. Also 50,000 words in November, with prize money for the top three and a meeting with a literary agent. The catch: you have to start the book on 1 November and write it inside Reedsy Studio. No pasting in from Word, and no AI-generated text, or you're out. https://reedsy.com/studio/challenges/reedsy-novel-sprint-2026
Do it yourself. Plenty of people are just doing it with a spreadsheet and a few friends. 50,000 words in 30 days is 1,667 a day. If that's too much on top of a job, pick your own number. 30,000 or 20,000 finished words in November still leaves you with more book than you had in October.
A few things I'd do whichever way you go:
- Back up somewhere other than the app. Download a copy every few days. A sync hiccup in week two is how people lose the month.
- Pick the app you'll actually open on a bad day. Your phone counts. A perfect setup you avoid is worse than a plain document you use.
- Decide now what you'll do on the days you miss. You will miss some. Plan to pick it back up rather than pay it all back in one night.
Is anyone here doing a November challenge? Which one, and what are you writing?