AI Is Coming for Amateur Novelists. That's Fine.

With a name that sounds like something a parent would slowly mouth to their infant, NaNoWriMo is an annual "challenge" in which many thousands of seemingly well-adjusted people decide to write a novel in a month. "Do I need something special to write a novel?" the nonprofit that puts on this exquisite torture reasonably asks on its website. National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 with 21 participants, and now nearly half a million take part every November. The event is also the name of the organization that gamifies the exercise, hosting participants on its online platform. To "win" NaNoWriMo, you need to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in a month (about the length of The Great Gatsby)--or 1,667 words a day, a number, NaNoWriMo tells us, that "scientists have determined to be the perfect amount to boost your creativity."