The cheek of them suggesting it’s been a struggle for any other reason than their grotesque betrayal of all creatives, worldwide. The name should be reclaimed by a new team who aren’t capitalist shills.
Good riddance to bad fucking garbage. As plenty of other posters have already noted, they were absolute trash along pretty much every available dimension and some brand new ones in addition; shilling for AI slop was just icing on the already-crappy cake.
You know, you can just write a book. In whatever month you want. Nobody is stopping you. The only way to be good at a thing is to be brave enough to be bad at the thing for a while first.
this reminds me of when the inktober guy ended up being trash so we made all sorts of like kinktober [character]tober drawtober etc to make our own. should just do that with nanowrimo too. like it should be a fun challenge for whoever wants to participate not... whatever it became.
I do think that in the very beginning, they did help a lot of young authors who needed that initial push off the cliff to actually just start, but that time has definitely long, long, LONG since past.
I mean, to be fair, that was the original point of Nanowrimo: most of us don't write that fast, so you had to give yourself permission to be bad just to get that many words down in a month
I don't know - I love writing books solo but I did love the community aspect of everyone writing fiction in a room together, and the perceived challenge of getting 50k out in a month. I wish they didn't start sucking because it was a big deal to me in LiveJournal days.
Yeah I had been thinking about trying to do a NaNoWriMo, but they were *so* specific about all the hoops to jump through.
Guys: forget about the nonprofit NaNoWriMo-- you can *choose* to do it anyway! Granted doing it as a group with others means working with others, but it's doable.
unextraordinary
adjective
un·ex·traor·di·nary ˌən-ik-ˈstrȯr-də-ˌner-ē -ˌek-strə-ˈȯr-
Synonyms of unextraordinary
: not exceptional or extraordinary
leading a normal, unextraordinary life
I'm not bothered by whether or not the word in question exists exists. I'm bothered by this statement's awful prose style, and "unextroardinary" was the centerpiece.
AI may be a nail in its coffin, but there were plenty of non-AI related issues that caused its demise as well. Many writers cut their associations with NaNo way before the AI announcement and for good reason.
I’m very pro-AI for a lot of reasons, but NaNo’s embrace of AI was such a desperate move. People from the start were doing copy/paste blocks of text and calling it a Novel, because there was no verification. The coaches were like, sure, if you want to waste your own time…
Promotion of GenAI was therefore useless. You could always waste your time producing sterile garbage. Hell, people on Etsy will add a string to Chinese tat and call it handmade. But if you want to get something out of it, you have to work. That was always the appeal of NaNo.
I found this one particularly bizarre. NaNoWriMo STARTED as a fan community, and the ppl running it legitimately seemed to think their fan base would be unable to just... pick up and leave if they did something to piss them off.
They would send writing materials for NaNo in classrooms, coordinate with librarians some, and had a custom web platform before trying to go more social media platform. Before that I was using IRC to chat with participants.
So, I never looked into it. I only ever heard of NaNoWriMo off hand. I've been thinking its a personal writing challenge. Guess I didn't pay enough attention.
... also reading other posts on this... grooming scandal? I was better off not knowing.
it is a personal writing challenge! 50k words (a novel) in a month, averaging about 1666 every day. when i did it i had this account on the website where i would submit all the words i'd written and have it totalled each day. i ended at about 50,004.
unextraordinary
adjective
un·ex·traor·di·nary ˌən-ik-ˈstrȯr-də-ˌner-ē -ˌek-strə-ˈȯr-
Synonyms of unextraordinary
: not exceptional or extraordinary
leading a normal, unextraordinary life
> AI Overview
That aside, if public institutions were available for people above 20, at no expense...
...oh, who am I kidding, far too few would inure themselves so.
If you're at a point where you need to navigate subtext delicately, you're beyond the help of a dictionary/thesaurus anyways.
Lots of haters out here, but when NaNo first started, it was a supportive, thriving community that led me to complete drafts of my first novels. Lots of love, lots of support, lots of financial aid to literacy efforts.
Very sad to see it lose its way the past few years, and sadder still it's gone.
* If I recall correctly, about a quarter of their million dollar annual budget was spent on salaries for their top two employees, which is actually kinda reasonable for San Francisco
* I provided a very brief summary of the image in the alt text. I didn't get the email because I'm not a subscriber, and I wasn't going to transcribe a couple paragraphs of blame-shifting, near meaningless corporate gobbledygook.
And if you're in the mood for fiction, I wrote this #Lucifer x #BigBangTheory crossover in way less than a month, and I think it's pretty good : https://archiveofourown.org/works/31403354
a highlight of that thread involved a nurse getting drunk and talking about the anatomy of elf dick as required by Tolkien's lore, which naturally lead to the creation of a lore accurate elf dildo
Just going to say that I don't believe their statement for a second.
They never filled their 2023 taxes, so it's impossible to tell for certain, but if you look at the 2022 taxes compared to the expenses they cut in response to the grooming scandal, they should be flush with money.
It's important to note that, since they never filled their taxes, their non-profit registration with California was deliquent and they were legally barred from collecting donations.
On top of that, it's impossible to tell who, if anyone, was on the board. Everyone I talked to had resigned.
What follows is conjecture and my opinion: there were about two people left at NaNoWriMo after the grooming scandal. They took the lack of governance as an opportunity to pay themselves exorbitant amounts of money.
Now, faced with having to admit that in public fillings, they're sitting down.
Telling will be who they assign the Trademarks to after this. I'm not a betting man, but I'd put my money on "Kilby Blades" (a pseudonym used on 2022's taxes) or ProWritingAid.
Either way, the unnamed person behind that moniker will profit again.
For years, people would talk about nanowrimo without ever mentioning an organization, so I don't think anything of value has been lost tbh. People will still participate. I mean, I knew about it for ten years but I've only known *them* since last year, y'kno?
It's more of a fun way to write together and network with other writers. You never had to actually write and publish a full novel in November. It was more for the love and fun of writing.
It's weird how all the famous call to action hashtag is an organization, that I didn't know about until someone pointed out how awful they were. BlackLivesMatter, Inktober, NanoWriMo. I'm waiting to hear TeamEdward was actually a 401c run by sex criminals.
Back in the day they had a forum and a progress tracker so you could keep accountability, they also had local kickoff events (I know in San Diego at least) and weekly morale emails from people like Neil Gaiman.
Local kick off events and write-ins is how I met the very excellent @ava.foxfort.net back in Brighton. Must have been at least 15 years ago, maybe more. Early NaNoWriMo was fun, though I never did actually write a complete book.
I’m not sure how it can be so expensive to run a website that just says “what if you wrote a book and did it within the arbitrary constraint of finishing it within a calendar month?”
They did promotions and stuff, so they probably liked that part and don't want to run it without going to parties, promoting their brand etc. Gives me nepobaby nonprofit vibes.
They did a summer camp thing, which didn’t pull great numbers. I suspect that was a huge money drain. Their community website interface became bloated and over-designed, which cost tons. At no point did they evaluate whether they were doing too much; they just asked for more money.
Like if you owned cornflakes and you were like, people like cornflakes, people also like beef, what if we put a steak in every box and then you had to log in to say how much you liked cornflakes but first you had to be sorted... Just make goddamned cornflakes.
they did organize events for various chapters of participants across the country but that’s… easily replaced with communities doing it themselves (and many already were doing that anyway)
Feeling fortunate that I got my 50k word TF fanfic draft during Covid. Got the shirts where it meant something. Ah well. Once they let go of the local groups it was done well before this.
I don’t expect much out of Killby Blade - they are the one who continually mishandled the predator and abuse situation then boosted AI for NaNo, while hiding entirely behind their penname in complete anonymity.
Didn't even realize nanowrimo was an actual organization til I saw the AI stuff last year. I even wrote some stuff a couple years back in the aughts. Seems like these days all it needs is a hashtag. No reason for the org.
To be fair, if this person is of A Certain Age, every Gen Xer I know is 10 or 20 years off in chronological math to the rest of the world. There's always one or two decades that just kinda went into a dustbin and forget to be calculated.
Jesus christ. I wrote stuff on several different years, back in the aughts. I forgot a comma, but it's not that hard to infer what I meant without assuming I think it's 2010.
The NaNo forum on Reddit has links to Discords that will be carrying on the work. You can also look for writer communities with your specific genre interests.
I was thinking of that, but tbh I just don't know where to start looking, so thanks for the advice! I'll go check out those discords. I'm not too fond of the chat server format, but I guess forums have just fallen out of fashion
It’s not my favorite either but I’ve found it works for writing sometimes especially sprints. You may also want to check out local writing groups. Some NaNo chapters spun off and host in person writing sessions.
NaNoWriMo relied heavily on local groups run by community members for years, long before modern social media was a thing; that meant running a large forum most of the year (it generally shut down for a few weeks leading up to November), as well as producing materials for local groups.
basically, running a website that gets hit with endless traffic for about two months out of the year then slows down — one that only worked if people could create accounts and make thousands of posts — was *extremely* expensive in the early 2000s.
they also had assorted writing programs targeted at young people for many years, which meant putting together educational material. I don't know how large scale any of those programs ever were, but they definitely cost some amount of money to produce.
That answers why they needed help in the 00s but not why they completely nose dived in the past 5 years. Which is where scandal and greed, plus gross Ai, comes in.
Greedy and AI take a back seat in their failure, unfortunately. The main reason they're shutting down, I suspect, is due to the whole big grooming scandal they had because they had utterly failed to background check anyone running youth programs.
they’re not shutting down the actual concept of a month long writing challenge tho. they’re shutting down NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit organization they used to fund and host the website and sponsors and events all these years. and people have been separating from them since their forum scandal in 2023
There’s nothing stopping folks doing that still though. I don’t think it was needed for writers to continue NaNoWriMo themselves and the pivot to AI just made that clear tbh.
Of course. I wasn’t paying attention regarding AI…last I heard was the big scandal where they tore the whole ML structure apart and tried to foist all liability on volunteers. I already wasn’t an ML by then but was still in the facebook group
As much as the AI thing is annoying I am very sure this has wayyyy more to do with the grooming scandal on their forums in 2023 that led to a lot of their sponsors and userbase backing out.
guess the sudden ai support was one last hail mary to get funding from new markets before they folded, too bad no one told them that every ai company loses 2 dollars for every 1 they make
Mostly because they really did have something good at one point, and they ruined it, and it feels like there's a world where they didn't fuck up this bad and it could have kept going.
i suspect they were only superficially a nonprofit... i think i remember them partnering with some ai service shortly before their blog in defense of ai ghostwriting
It wasn’t just about AI. NaNoWriMo (th3 org) was involved in a grooming scandal that they tried to cover up, and then denied until the FBI got involved.
I’m sad. I hoped it’d get better, except they just doubled down on everything awful and are now trying to guilt trip the community for it.
While I never did it myself, NaNoWriMo did create community and energy and I know people who swear by it. It can probably continue as an idea without the central organisation, which had made some missteps recently.
Beyond accessibility, I see alt text as a useful exercise in writing as you need to consider what part of the image is the important part, and what information you wish to convey.
Comments
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
More than a moment, I'm sure, but... damn. Not many squares left unchecked on *that* bingo card.
Even in skimming this, though... Yeah. Ick.
Guys: forget about the nonprofit NaNoWriMo-- you can *choose* to do it anyway! Granted doing it as a group with others means working with others, but it's doable.
adjective
un·ex·traor·di·nary ˌən-ik-ˈstrȯr-də-ˌner-ē -ˌek-strə-ˈȯr-
Synonyms of unextraordinary
: not exceptional or extraordinary
leading a normal, unextraordinary life
I'm not bothered by whether or not the word in question exists exists. I'm bothered by this statement's awful prose style, and "unextroardinary" was the centerpiece.
Any chance we can build a replacement?
Na, no mo'.
reaping: well this fucking sucks.
Thank you!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TR6NnjgeIIY
... also reading other posts on this... grooming scandal? I was better off not knowing.
adjective
un·ex·traor·di·nary ˌən-ik-ˈstrȯr-də-ˌner-ē -ˌek-strə-ˈȯr-
Synonyms of unextraordinary
: not exceptional or extraordinary
leading a normal, unextraordinary life
That aside, if public institutions were available for people above 20, at no expense...
...oh, who am I kidding, far too few would inure themselves so.
If you're at a point where you need to navigate subtext delicately, you're beyond the help of a dictionary/thesaurus anyways.
Very sad to see it lose its way the past few years, and sadder still it's gone.
no it won't.
* This image comes from an email that was sent to NaNoWriMo subscribers
* It's probably not an April Fools joke - apparently their website has been falling apart for months
* Only the organization is shutting down - people can still organize NaNoWriMo via hashtags or Discord or whatever
David Tennant won't answer my emails.
They never filled their 2023 taxes, so it's impossible to tell for certain, but if you look at the 2022 taxes compared to the expenses they cut in response to the grooming scandal, they should be flush with money.
On top of that, it's impossible to tell who, if anyone, was on the board. Everyone I talked to had resigned.
Now, faced with having to admit that in public fillings, they're sitting down.
Either way, the unnamed person behind that moniker will profit again.
But yeah, no one actually needs these spaces to simply write
A couple? 🤔
The one time I briefly seriously checked out NaNo a couple years ago it had all gotten *way* too serious.
Originally it was supposed to be kinda maybe exhausting but also fun. And if you didn't make the goal? 🤷♂️ oh well.
But the *vibes* were like: it's all so serious. (Wtf?)
I'm shocked. SHOCKED!
Always has, always will
I wish I still knew where to find a writing community though.
It’s new, but it has features from the old NaNoWriMo
https://trackbear.app/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nanowrimo/comments/19dy3ho/no_more_nanowrimo/?rdt=48133
After the grooming scandal, well who knows where the money went. They never filled taxes after that.
that was 20+ years of participation for this city all down the drain, from people who were extremely enthusiastic about it
I thought it was just a hashtag for writers on social media.
Mostly because they really did have something good at one point, and they ruined it, and it feels like there's a world where they didn't fuck up this bad and it could have kept going.
I will miss it.
absolute chumps
I’m sad. I hoped it’d get better, except they just doubled down on everything awful and are now trying to guilt trip the community for it.
I hate bad alt text more than none at all.
No Alt Text means: "I don't care or I don't know better"
Bad Alt Text means: "I know it's important that people with screenreaders can see this... But fuck them"
but useless alt text of text screenshots says “fuck you”
I always hope that my alt texts are comprehensive but not overwhelming.
Sometimes I also use it to add a bit of context to the usage of the picture (because it's not always self-explanatory)
but also, lol
I always thought it was just a viral trend.
I ask the source.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nanowrimo/comments/19dy3ho/no_more_nanowrimo/?rdt=48133
completely ethically bankrupt organization for its entire existence
funny how a lack of ethics and "genAI" often go together