#Fuck Nanowrimo

[gaywizardemporium]

*taps mic*

Fuck NaNoWriMo

It's always been a shit way to write a book. Slamming through fifty thousand words in a month leads to burnout and a garbage draft you'll spend more time unfucking than if you'd actually just paced yourself.

I'm proposing Novel Outline November

Start with your idea on November 1st.

Write something for your novel every day. The only unacceptable amount is 0.

Attempt to complete the plot in 50K words. Stick with that as a limiting factor so you focus on what's most important to your story.

When it's done it's done! Everyone is a winner!

You will

Develop good writing habits

Challenge yourself to write long form

Create a base that can be expanded into commercial fiction (70-100K) or genre fiction (100-110K)

Happy writing!

[senseigrace]

In the midst of another NaNoWriMo controversy, I'm going to take a second to recommend TrackBear (https://trackbear.app/) to anyone looking for a new way to track their writing.

You can have multiple WIPs going at once that can all count towards the same goal, or you can make it so only select WIPs can count towards a goal.

You can have "Habits" or "Goals." A goal is 50k in a month, and a habit is 1667 for 30 days.

It also has a leaderboard for you and any friends that you are writing with.

I've enjoyed it a lot these past couple of months, and I find it a fantastic (and a better) alternative to NaNoWriMo's word tracker.

[the-nanowrimo-chronicles]

Nanowrimo supports AI.

Zendesk post titled ‘What is NaNoWriMo's position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?’

Besides there being no mention of scraping or of stolen material, or even any idea of they’re talking about generative AI or older proofreaders, this statement is horribly classist and ableist in itself, essentially implying that lower class and/or disabled writers need to use AI to make their works ‘suitable’ for the upper class market.

If I could get a little personal, that is so fucking stupid. I’m disabled, I’m relatively new to writing, and my work is rough as fuck around the edges. Disabled people can write. We don’t need AI to do it for us, even if it was completely 100% ethical, which it really is not.

So yeah. Nano is pro AI, if you want another reason to hate them.

[hufflepuffwrites]

time to put Scrivener on blast

Scrivener has made it clear they’re riding with NaNoWriMo. Let’s put them on blast.

[therkalexander]

Fuck NaNoWriMo.

If you don’t want to put the time and energy into honing your writing, then do something the fuck else. Leaning on a plagiarism machine that churns out gobbledygook and heats up the planet ain’t it.

[ariaste]

local cowards and corporate scabs (@nanowrimo HQ) so far refusing to fight me in a Denny's parking lot even though I called them cowards and corporate scabs and a lot of other mean names on twitter.

literally what does it take to get cyberbullied in DMs around here

[alpaca-clouds]

Really, Fuck The Official NaNoWriMo

Ugh. As if the entire stuff with folks from the forum team grooming kids was not enough, NaNoWriMo has now come out with official policies about AI writing. And just look at this fucking mess.

Source.

Like, they make it seem as if AI is just about using AI in the editing process. But we all know it is not. If they make a blanket statement about AI being okay, this will include fullon generative AI, which is by definition not writing.

And look. While I absolutely am for paying editors and stuff if you can afford them, I can see using an AI to get some baseline editing done. Especially if you are not expecting or intending to make a profit from your writing. (Maybe, because you are writing fanfiction, or because you know that your self-published novel will probably not sell more than 200 copies. Let's face it also: Writers are very much underpaid in all areas!)

But generative AI? I am sorry, basically everyone can write. Not everyone can write well, but that never was the point of the NaNoWriMo. It was not about writing well, not about having a perfect product in the end, but just about the accomplishment of writing 50k within one month. No matter how raw and unedited those 50k were.

And I am sorry, I am very, very much disabled. And no, expecting others to either write themselves or if they are not motivated enough to not participate is not ableism. I am also very, very poor. Like, VERY POOR. And no, it is not classist to ask writers to write for themselves.

In fact it is classist and ableist to support software that has been illegally trained on the writing of often poor and at times disabled writers on a variety of websites online.

So yeah, fuck this organization.

I am still gonna do my own challenge for November - but I am not officially participating.

Fuck them.

Fuck AI.

[almightytuba]

so in general im not mad about fucknanowrimo coming back strong. i am very glad, actually. ai is disgusting BUT if youre purposely not taking this as an opportunity to acknowledge and also rage about it promoting suicide, pedophilia, racism, terrorism, and fucking grooming kids when it is a SCHOOL ACCEPTED PROGRAM reevaluate yourself. please.

[shadelorde]

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 :( “

[artoftallyrogue]

My NaNo Alt Challenge

I've seen some really great ideas for alternatives to NaNoWriMo.

I like the Outline Challenge 400 words a day I'd like to also consider:

Character Creation Days!

Character stat sheets (write up their stats, looks, etc. Create the character!)

To add to that: * Character development days / write some small character development prompt stories (like. Put them in situations to see how they react and stuff)

World Development days (what is your world like???)

[steadycoffeeflow]

I'm coming out of my cage and things are not fine, I'm screaming at NaNo "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

If you haven't already been made aware how borked NaNoWriMo is, in the past 24 hours they've released an endorsement of AI after partnering with an AI software program.

The problem is, much of what they're saying is outright bullshit, and I don't even need to get into the nature of belittling the very writers they claim they're sticking up for by talking over them. It's an exploitation of a community, using them as a PR meat shield.

Because it should be awfully apparent NaNo's goal isn't to foster a healthy writing community. If that were the true goal, their missteps for the past year following the child harm allegations wouldn't be happening. Rather, instead, it's more likely the reason every company has relentlessly pursued and pushed AI: $$$

I don't think I'm entirely off base to say money is the reason AI is mucking up much of our creative spaces. At the peak of this fervor, you could load up some listicle titled '5 Ways AI Boosts Your Side Hustle' or some YouTuber claiming to make thousands a month with their AI writing, as if it were that easy to make a living writing and silly authors have just been leaving money on the table.

The mad gold rush that followed impacted literary magazines and publishing spaces, such as Clarkesworld Magazine freezing submissions as they were inundated with poorly written nonsense. The people behind NaNoWriMo, however, apparently believe Clarkesworld Magazine is just being classist and ableist in their anti-AI stance. Yes. Certainly because of those reasons.

And not because their submissions jumped an untenable amount, almost 500% from their usual submission intake, and cost the lit mag staff untold amounts of mental harm (as well as a very real number amount of staffing hours and financial costs to combat this problem).

But to that, NaNo Org argues that AI is cost-effective, actually!

Which, we're back to the opening argument that NaNo is full of shit (in case you didn't realize that citation link was sarcasm and not evidence in support of NaNo's stance). It may be free to the end user to access AI, notwithstanding the many many models one can buy including NaNo's own sponsor, but the financial damages being incurred by the use of this tech is anything but. The fact NaNo glosses through this in three little bullet points is insulting.

But what really has gotten me to write off about this on a mostly dead Tumblr blog, is that I've worked in the publishing industry all of my adult life and I've been a part of the creative writing community about as long as NaNo claims to. Hell, part of my contract freelance work has been to go through slush piles and evaluate, by hand, if the submission utilized AI or not. Full transparency, that work has helped me get through medical bills this year.

Yet that's my point. Someone had to rearrange their budgets to hire many people like me to combat rampant AI-generated submissions, from college admission offices to literary magazines to other publishers. What could have gone toward the print run of a special issue or increasing the marketing budget of a debut author now has to go making sure illegal, plagiarized work isn't being unwittingly published and endorsed. It's not classist to take a stand against a technology that's disruptive enough to put people out of business, but NaNo takes aim and fires off some bullshit claim they're pro-indie authors.

You might be thinking, "But Steady, if the business can't adapt to the market, they shouldn't exist!"

And to that I say, not every single little thing needs to have a financial commodity price tag slapped onto it. Not everything needs to make money. Things have a right to exist without a price tag stickered on them. The onus of this situation is because NaNo partnered with an AI sponsor. They're outright seeking to make money out of this. Because they're well aware of the PR fiasco, they're high-grounding the situation by claiming they're sticking up for the little guys, while outright taking money from a harmful billion dollar industry.

Meanwhile, the little guy will find no publisher will touch their work, that their writing has no copyright protections attached to them, and they'll be blacklisted by those they stole the work from. NaNo claims this is unfair; sorry folks, that's just how it works. Stealing from your fellow writers tends to get those same writers to rally against you.

I don't need to be told that the publishing industry has issues, that fanfiction writers are made fun of and lambasted. But most of those issues stem from and feed right back into the very problem NaNo is claiming to stand against: The financial commodity of writing.

NaNo has everything to gain by you believing them and using their sponsorship coupon so you can generate works as a writer that have no copyright protections and likely violated the copyrights of fellow writers works in doing so (I can play the bolded words game too, you pricks (see their update in response to the massive backlash this stance has generated online)).

The final point I have to say, is that in NaNo's defense they claim their online workshops are just full to the brim! See the demand! Look, look with your special eyes how popular AI is!! You fools, this is the future at hand!!!

Except, I, an avid anti-AI writer and publishing professional, attend webinars about AI all the damned time. Mostly to understand what new angle or developments we'll have to defend against. Every single one of these publishing industry or writing webinars are, in the end, a sales pitch to get you to pay them rather than a fellow freelancer.

Notwithstanding, it's a marketing and sales 101 faux pas to mistake interest in a thing, eyes on screens and butts in seats, for tacit endorsement in said thing. Besides the obvious point that people most impacted by this tech would be interested in learning more about it, there's the very real possibility that the same crowd who drives clicks to Forbes and YouTube videos is partially the same crowd that flocks to these NaNo webinars seeking to make a quick, effortless buck.

So, in the end, NaNo isn't speaking to writers. They're speaking to people looking to exploit a blind spot in an industry in order to make $$$ in our Capitalist Hellscape. And in NaNo's rush to join that race, they're trampling over the community they've grown and fostered for over 20 years.

The insinuation of this entire statement is that NaNo is standing tall for the "little guy" that the writing community has just let wilt and suffer for years, neglected and unheard. And it's totally not that NaNo nuked their own forums, a free, accessible resource for such writers to utilize, and without warning fired all of their volunteer staff all because they dropped the ball in moderation and safety checks (I'm not touching on whether the groomer is still working for NaNo since that situation is tainted by rumors, sensationalism, and directly conflicting stories).

And topping this all off with a pithy little cherry on this shit sundae: "For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions."

So not only does NaNo condone plagiarism and theft, they're quick to both-sides the issue, only to immediately say "we're all free to make our own decisions!" Not said is the heavy implication, "oh but if you stand against AI you're a classist, ableist dickhead!" Which, if it wasn't obvious, is so far removed from the truth it's insulting.

In short, fuck NaNoWriMo.

Also what the fuck does "further-proof" mean.

[the-nanowrimo-chronicles]

A WIRED article was released on the fallout of the AI drama

It’s a short article but it covers the AI drama and the resignations that followed. Also spoke to a couple of people involved with this mess, who have been massive help in keeping up with everything that’s happened since December.

[meshaamem-li]

i don't fully understand what nanowrimo is, but if it's free to participate I think we should spam them with as much low effort ai generated works as possible, preferably with the worst plots you can think of, preferably cruticising the use of ai in writing.

[damnonew]

if you're looking for a solid summary of the current nano issues, here it is

[full-of-malice]

Is it bad that I still miss the YWP. I left the community behind a while ago and I’m doing fine now but sometimes I wish i could just live in the summer where I was ignorant. And I always feel bad about it. Idk.

i get it honestly. you don't need to feel guilty about wishing what you could have you know?

just like a lot of places, it wasn't bad every single moment, and there were close friends and bonds that made you want to stick around through all the bad times and repeating conflicts.

i think it's just really important to remember that what made the ywp so special was the people there. any part of happiness or help that i gained from that website was never because of the moderation or the staff or anything to do with the shitty website format, it was always the people who knew how bad nano was but they were sticking around. towards the end a lot of people stuck around or came out of the works to protect the people who had nowhere else to go. and think that's important.

nano was never any good, the ywp was shit, but it was the people that really made it feel so special when it did.

i distanced myself from the ywp a lot in the months after it was shut down and once i was apart from it i realized how toxic it all was even when doing our bests to separate ourselves from the worsts of nano. and how dependent i was on the place. and then afterwards being apart of the writing server that only harbored some of the most toxic parts and mentalities of nano was not any better. i was forced along with a few others to come to terms with the fact for our sake we had to distance ourselves from that too. in the end we shut it down

but it changed me as a person, i don't think i would be who i am today, for better or worse. through whatever methods it forced me to grow and adapt, and better understand myself. but i certainly wish i could have met everyone somewhere else. in a different time and a different place.

if you ever need it my dms are always open, i'm on a few different platforms as well if you want to talk, feel free to just ask for them. and if you are ever trying to get back into contact with anyone specific from the ywp, i know a good chunk of them and how to contact them, so feel free to reach out and i'll do my best

[lavendermoonlitskies]

Life updates that nobody asked for <3

Hi. So my life has been kind of hectic lately and it has been really hard finding comfort in anything, but I think I might slowly be coming out of that stage. I posted a little while ago that my dad might have cancer for the second time in his life and I was kind of falling apart at the thought of it, and now it has been confirmed that it is, in fact, cancer.

The good news is it’s localized, which means that in its current state, it’s a small tumor and it hasn’t spread, so all hope has not been lost, which is what I think I was really afraid of. Someone told me that the hardest part is waiting for test results and not having any idea what the future looks like, and I think that’s true because even though it was bad news, we are not experiencing the worst case scenario at this point. That could be set to change, but I would drive myself insane if I keep thinking about it like that, so I’ll try not to. He has a treatment plan, and that’s gonna go on for another couple months before they reassess and figure out where to go from there. I still have hope that it will go away, and I think it’s really important for me to hang onto that for my own sanity.

With everything going on, with all the crippling anxiety that goes along with it, I still have the urge to create. I’m not the best writer, I’m sure my work at this point is littered with mistakes and it’s clear to any professional that I am most certainly not, well, a professional. I know my writing hasn’t reached that much of an audience and I am so okay with that, but it brings me joy. I’ve always had little stories floating around in my head and this last year has been the first time in a while I’ve actually sat down and put it to paper (or perhaps more accurately to a google doc that’s never going to be printed on actual paper).

I know that the gap between the time I posted the first chapter of The Road Less Traveled (GO fic) and whenever I’m going to finally update it again keeps getting larger, but it crossed my mind again today and I remembered all my plans for it, and even though things in my real life look bleak right now, I almost felt excited for just a moment. It’s going to be slow, but I want to keep this story going, so I’m just going to have to be patient with myself.

In addition to that, I’ve been reading a lot of original novels lately and I feel inspired. I’ve never written anything that even comes close to a full-length novel, but I have this concept and I think it’s a good one. I’ve created characters, plotted stuff out, and even written a scene or two, so I guess I’ll just have to see where it goes. I think that this has kind of always been something I’ve wanted to do in the back of my mind, and with where I am in life right now maybe it’s as good a time as ever to try something new just because. I’ve let depression and anxiety consume me before, so even though this is a very real and very scary situation that could go in a lot of different directions, I don’t think I want to let myself do that this time.

November is coming up (sort of), and I know that that’s a really important month for writers, so I’m sort of getting myself ready for that. People are organizing NaNoWriMo alternatives, so I might jump in on one of those (side note: fuck the NaNoWriMo people for claiming that denouncing the use of AI in creative spaces is “ableist.” As a disabled person, that is a deeply insulting misuse of a word that is meant to shed light on the real issues disabled people face every day). I am an amateur, I don’t know what I’m doing at all, but maybe there’s something beautiful in someone who doesn’t have any “credentials” as a writer/artist/etc. just creating something because they want to.