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shit no bc im pretty sure i have copies saved of all of my work in my google drive but lowkey i might not... its totally possible i forgot something and its just lost forever :(

well. looks like the nanowrimo site is officially down.

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meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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Six year old, bouncing up and down with glee as desserts are unpacked: "I'm so appointed!"

Took me a moment to realize she had logically assumed "appointed" must be the opposite of "disappointed" and used it as a synonym for "excited."

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WAS

@the-nanowrimo-chronicles guess we're officially done for real

well. looks like the nanowrimo site is officially down.

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well. looks like the nanowrimo site is officially down.

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Farewell online privacy

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the worst part of nano is that so many of us were sheltered kids with nowhere else we could get information.

nanowrimo seemed like probably the safest place for even a sheltered kid to be allowed access. it was just a writing site after all.

i was lucky enough to have the internet freedom to be able to make an alt email for myself, where i could post on nano and chat with friends without my parents reading it.

if they had found out i likely would have been banned from the internet for life.

(sometimes i wish they had. i wish they had known how much time in high school i spent getting groomed online despite thinking i knew internet safety rules.)

i had friends on there who had to regularly delete their posts, delete their accounts, clear their browser history, etc.

we had to encode names of threads like the lgbtq one so that we wouldn't be outed to our parents. many of us learned what being queer was through nano. many of us found our own identities there. not just queer identity either--that's just a thread i spent my fair share of time on.

we didn't have trusted adults offline that we could tell what was going on when something didn't feel right. we sometimes had each other. we never had the mods.

i think about the young teens who joined nano and discovered themselves and made their first friends. myself at that age.

and now i can't help but think about all the new generation of kids who won't have even that support. probably for the best.

but at the same time, it's one less space for a lonely kid raised in a controlling family to access.

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So Nanowrimo is actually dead.

After 25 years of operation, Nanowrimo is shutting down.

An email came out in the hours approaching April Fools

A video was attached to the email, which can be viewed here:

The video is on Kilby’s channel and not the long dead Nanowrimo channel. The video is full of…

Kilby logic, but there is some relevant information contained within.

If have anything on Nanowrimo you need to get off the site, take it now. The site will likely not be around for too much longer.

Despite everything that the organisation has been through, the closure of a 25 year old nonprofit is still a tragedy, and my heart goes out to everyone that’s grieving from this. Nano has hurt a lot of people, but it meant a lot to so many, and I will be sorry to see that go.

Even if I don’t agree with many things in the recent video, I can agree with the sentiment of one slide.

I will update you all if and when relevant information comes out. Despite everything, I now doubt that this will be my last post.

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would you be my fool for April fools day? 🥹🥹🥹

yes 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 always

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bittersweet to leave nano behind for real.

like on the one hand, ding dong bitch the witch is dead!

and on the other hand, im losing a platform i've used for close to the past 10 years.

i need to log back onto my account and re-download all my stuff.

i'm going to let go of that place for good.

it's weird. nano was such a formative childhood experience for me. i had my gay awakening through my second nano novel, which i co-wrote with my fourth grade crush.

and i had a hell of a teenage experience on that site too. as most of yall know.

and it's just all gonna be gone. for real. for good.

i don't know how to feel about this.

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GOOD NEWS

IT'S DEAD

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Nano walked back their AI stance

The AI FAQ now reads:

And they also posted this:

Which doesn’t apologise for calling AI detractors ableist and classist, or implying that disabled or lower class people need AI to write. Because it’s nano wtf are we expecting? Competence?

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what about us.

so many posts about the ai thing and i have seen a single post from someone i don't know about the abuse we faced.

what about us?

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this suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. fuck nanowrimo. if you're doing NaNoWriMo this year, let them know how much this sucks and don't give them any of your money.

generative AI is not a classism issue it is not an ableism issue tHE WHOLE GOAL OF THE PROJECT IS THAT YOU ARE WRITING AND NOT AN ALGORITHM.

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we (the ywp users) MADE the ‘anti nanowrimo’ tag. we were the ones who really used it. but guess no one cares until it’s about a hot button issue that everyone can jump in on and not “ew icky grooming makes me uncomfortable :( “

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like. if it’s the AI that’s making you quit nano and not when we talked about being groomed I genuinely don’t know what to fucking tell you except for what the fuck.