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Baty, though, has a different perspective. He doesn’t deny that writing takes dedication and commitment, but he feels that dutiful revisions should take place later on. After the inhibitions are removed, he says, people can write what they’ve always been afraid to write and then “get the genius on the second draft.”

Over the years, NaNoWriMo has grown beyond its original purpose of simply encouraging people to write. For the past three years, organizers have donated half of their net profits (NaNoWriMo has an online store that sells products; it’s a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that accepts donations, and writers can be sponsored much like runners or walkers can be for charity races) to Room to Read, a group dedicated to building libraries in rural areas of Southeast Asia. And in 2005, Baty and his friends launched NaNoWriMo’s K–12 equivalent, called the Young Writers Program. Teachers and students set individual word-count goals and use the event as a way to create excitement about writing.

Despite the changes to and the growing popularity of NaNoWriMo, Baty insists that its main purpose remains simple yet powerful. “People just sometimes see for the first time that people have a story to tell, and that they have the perfect voice to tell it,” he says. “This model of monthlong creativity for everyone has an amazing potential to transform the world.”