A NaNoWriMo alternative: writing with a crew
If you miss having other writers around you in November, a sim gives you that all year, at a pace you can keep.
Why writers look for an alternative
National Novel Writing Month gave a lot of people a reason to write every day. It also gave them the feeling of doing it alongside thousands of others. NaNoWriMo the organization closed in 2025. Plenty of writers still do their own November challenge. Many have also gone looking for a group to write with the rest of the year.
What simming offers instead
- A steady pace, not a sprint. Each group sets its own pace, often somewhere between a couple of posts a month and a few a week. There is no monthly word target, and a busy week is fine if you tell your crew.
- Readers from day one. Every post goes to the whole crew. People read your scene within days and write the next one in reply.
- A story that keeps going. Instead of a draft that sits in a folder, you get a long-running story with an archive you can read back.
- Practice at the hard parts. Dialogue, pacing and writing to a deadline all get easier when someone is waiting on your next scene.
What it does not do
A sim will not give you a finished novel of your own. The story belongs to the crew, and the setting usually belongs to someone else, most often Star Trek. Writers who want a manuscript at the end of the month are better served by a word-count challenge or an online writing group. Some people do both: a sim for the weekly habit, and their own project on the side.
Crew: the group of writers on one ship or station, usually somewhere between five and twenty people.
Trying it
Read how a sim works to see what a week looks like, then pick a group from the list. Most groups let you read their recent posts before you apply, which is the best way to tell whether their style suits you.