There's still some activity on the Nano forums and there are some interesting questions. On one thread, someone suggested that there should be a "junior" nano where younger participants could have a smaller goal like 25k or 30k instead of 50k. I'm sure this would be more attainable but if I were younger, I would think it almost condescending. I would argue that older people have less time than younger people and it wouldn't be fair to arbitrarily limit the goal for a subset of people. When I was in middle school and high school, I wrote a lot (even though I never attempted the 50k in one month deal) and if Nano had been around then, I would have done the whole thing.
Another question was why so many participants chose to do science fiction and fantasy. I think it someone else who responded to the thread had the idea: that the very nature of the internet draws out the people who are more interested in sf/f. Consider: most people who spend any time on the internet tend to be geeks. And geeks usually read sf/f. Personally, I find sf/f, horror, mystery, and any other type of speculative fiction more interesting than the regular stuff so as a writer, you wouldn't catch me doing any of the boring slice of life fiction.
