#NaNoWriMo scandal

[inksinger]

As a heads up, @nanowrimo have begun suppressing comments on their latest Facebook post that are unrelated to the post (because they still have not made a post regarding the latest Board announcement, the new municipal liason contract, the revisions to their ToS, etc). Mine specifically was tagged for "spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation", which is very interesting coming from a page that is refusing to publicly address any concerns and is instead hiding those concerns.

As of the time I'm posting this, all of the comments in the above screenshots are hidden. These were all on their most recent post, which they made on February 22.

[karalianne]

DARVO

Kilby is digging herself quite the hole.

This one made me really angry. HOW DARE YOU TRY TO DO THIS TO GOOD PEOPLE?

It is so insulting, to everyone, and I HATE IT.

[thecoppersphinx]

Before I decided to stop with NaNoWriMo, I started seeing signs something was afoot! Now I learned from two friends the controversy grew worse after I stopped participating.

Will try and see if I can still log into my old account, download, screenshot, delete some files, and then close my account.

I'm also removing all NaNo banners and badges from my blog.

It's been nice knowing ya, NaNo, but you did people wrong and didn't take responsibility or hold folks accountable.

Time for you to become a previously read chapter.

[danniswrites]

I finally got my 2024 Apr Camp NaNoWriMo Official Winner Certificate!

Did Tech Support finally answer my frantic plea? Well, no. But I had read something about recreating the record to get the record connected with the offical NaNo project. So, I searched in Support and found this.

I followed these directions to create an identical project. I copied every day's entered word count and put it in again.

NOTE: You must go to the Stats menu option

Go to your account's page

My plea for help that went unanswered. This post was actually deleted!

So I created an unofficial certificate on Canva.com and put it on social media. I was very upset.

Here was my official project, and I hit my goal and had badges...but no winner graffiti. It wasn't linked as an official project. I'd seen a banner telling me to link it, but when I tried, every project I ever did was listed...except this one, that I just won with.

I looked up on the forums what someone else tried, and they accidentally deleted their project! I posted on the forums about my problem. The other post had been from November. But both that one and mine got deleted! I figured no help was coming, so I made my Unofficial NaNoWriMo Winner Certificate and posted it to Twitter, with a link to the doc for others to create their own if they liked.

But, I'm not one to just give up. So, I tried creating a new project. First, i went to my account main page.

Under My NaNoWriMo on the bar, I chose Projects to get to this one, then Stats to get my word counts per day.

If you left click and drag your mouse so your daily counts are highlighted, you can Ctrl-C [or Control-C] on a Mac to copy this to the clipboard. Open a Notepad file and Ctrl-V to paste. Use this later.

Go back to your Projects page and create a new project. Note that, you must do this before Apr 30 or you can't choose Camp NaNo for your Goal.

I then went in Stats on the NEW project I just created and did Add New Update. Only on the Stats page can you add words for a different day than today!

Now my project says Winner [the top one of the two Galactic Ministers' Staff Projects, on the right side of the bar]

And, I was able to click on it and download my official certificate! Yes, it's a .pdf, but I opened it and did a screenshot with the Game Bar, that's Windows-G if your keyboard has the Windows button on it. It brings up choices for screenshot or movie, and is handy. Find the screenshot in Video->Captures and double click. Use the cropping tool in Photos and save a copy. Now you can post your Winner Certificate to your social media!

That's how I fixed my project so it now says Winner. Good luck to all of you!

Yes, I am upset at what happened on the youth forums. This happens on a lot of forums, and I think the answer is for someone brilliant to write an AI that can detect these vile people! It is bad that it happened, but I still participated, not in support of perverts who took advantage of innocent youth just trying to enjoy writing. I still think the spirit of NaNo is good, and I will continue to set my goal and write 3 times a year.

But now I am adding the also 3 times a year Royal Road Writeathon to my yearly bucket. If you wanna read my latest project, it is

Ella's Saga

Ella stays busy to cope with her chaotic life, but she meets Farley, who gives her a new kind of pocket computer, and she realizes he's connected to SETI's discovery today. Farley also has some unusual knowlege of Ella's future, which makes her realize she needs to rethink her priorities. There is much more to life than good grades and pursuit of her programming career. Her skills are badly needed in Farley's home.

I had 988 views yesterday, so if it sounds interesting, please go read for free! I plan to add chapters daily 'til it's finished, then delete it from Royal Road and put it on Amazon Kindle. Comments and rating greatly appreciated! I love the Royal Road folks and I'm glad to be a member of the Penguins Group [LOL that's the default group for members of Royal Road and there's a forum post explaining it].

[writey-unicorn]

So I haven't been here in a while and when I did, I didn't talk politics. But NaNoWriMo doesn't care about the community and it is making me just mad enough that I have to say something.

The way they're handling this situation is fucked up. Should the woman who started this get fired? Yes! Should we punish the moderators? Sure! Why not? Fire every single one for all I care! All of this could have been solved entirely if they had just put in a block button and gotten rid of the moderators entirely! It's likely that last year's NaNo still would have been ruined but we would have had forums for Camp April and a guarantee of having forums for Camp July and for this year's NaNo. Instead, this has dragged on for over 6 months now because NaNo can't pull their heads out of their ass.

They have blocked off all of the ways the community could speak to them directly, tech support has stopped answering questions, and there is no end to this in sight. I know I can't be the only one who has lost any faith I had in them; something that wouldn't have happened if they had dealt with this in a reasonable, swift fashion when it became a problem.

I don't know what NaNoWriMo is doing but whatever it is, it isn't out of love for the community because if they gave one shit out the community then this problem would have been solved by now and this would be a sad blip in the rearview mirror. this would allow us to still talk to them. Tech support would still be answering questions. So I don't know what they are doing this for, virtue signaling or power tripping or politics, but it's not for the community. I never gave any donations before although I had thought about it but now, now that they've shown themselves to be untrustworthy, I can't imagine anyone who would give money to them. If anyone knows of a good replacement for the community that NaNo has destroyed then please, I need to know about it because, at this point, I doubt they're going to fix it.

[spooky-feline]

So if you login on to NanoWriMo and go to your home region, most of them have a discord or other off platform communication (and you can set one up if not!) join that before deleting your nano account.

ML's are volunteers who do not get paid and do not sign off on Nano announcements. If you're writing community is communicating off the Nano platform and you're not giving Nano money, there's no ethical reason you can't continue NanoWriMo and having/attending writing events without the organization. (There's also a lot of different software and spreadsheets that will do Nano like word graphs and trackers for you!)

The challenge has always been about taking time to prioritize your writing and finding community with other writers. The website has only ever been about facilitating that and we don't need them anymore.

Many ML's will still want to host events if there's an active community and can do so without supporting Nano ( but also be understanding to all that don't, they're volunteers anything they do is a courtesy not a duty) , and you can always host your own! "Meeting at such and such library at 2".

Don't let the shitty organization (which I think is like 2 people rn) and their bad decisions over the past few years take away our passion projects and communities! Nanowrimo belongs to everyone who has ever participated or has wanted to, not the website that just shared the name.

[feralkwe]

so i am still digging up sources to verify things, but there is, allegedly, a grooming scandal being aimed at a moderator of NaNoWriMo forums.

the closest thing i can find to a source is know your meme, which has screenshots from the accusers and the accused. it's not enough, imo, to make a judgment alone, but i did find a statement from the board of directors of nano, which i will share in screenshots. apologies for quality, and it will take at least one reblog to fit them all because tumblr only allows ten pics.

[hawkeyefrommash]

are there alternative organizations to nanowrimo that aren't sketchy as hell?

[penny-anna]

Just to say: if you were aware of last year's NaNoWriMo forum child grooming scandal but have only just now in the wake of the AI thing decided to cut ties, you may want to examine your priorities

[writing-for-life]

I recently went through some of my ancient drafts and stumbled across my very first attempts at writing steamy romance.

Holy TROPES, Batman!

My gawd, the sex scenes!

The cringe-factor of writing the very first one and not having a clue how to bring what I saw before my mind’s eye to the page (it's always hotter when you imagine it, ya know?). But also enjoying it and just keeping on going. I like to inject humour and make things a bit more human, because apart from hot, sex is also messy, funny and all sorts of weird in my view. Sometimes, humour worked. Sometimes, it was… extremely questionable?

So I just thought I’d share one of these first…erm… marvels and let everyone who’s struggling with writing sex scenes know:

It does get better. It does get easier. You will stop worrying if it sounds right, if it’s “hot enough” or “too hot”. You will stop worrying whether using C-words will catapult you into a different category (I don't do "magic wands" and "joysticks" or anything to do with "meat", but if that floats your boat, all good).

At some point, you just write (I certainly came a long way since then - the one I’m posting here is actually quite tame, but at the time, I thought it wasn't). If you like it yourself, there will be other people out there who will, too. That’s whom you write for - forget about the rest.

This scene is taken from a romance fic I abandoned after 90,000 words (yeah, you read that right) because it wasn't going anywhere. The story is so tropey and cringey that no amount of editing was going to fix it. The bedroom antics got better with time though (this is actually the first), so I guess it was worth it in terms of "copulation practice", bwahaha.

Buckle up for the cringe-fest and meet Julian and Rebecca...

NSFW, 18+ only

Swearing

Cheating/Adultery

M/F safe sex/penetration

~2000 words to describe one fuck

When we arrived at the hotel, Julian led me through the lobby towards the elevator, past the reception. He made sure that we weren’t holding hands or looked in any way too close. My mind began to race. What if anyone had noticed? Nothing, actors probably brought hookers and escorts into their suites all the time, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if the hotel staff had been paid off. For a second, it made me feel cheap, but I banished the thought quickly.

We stepped into the elevator, and he pressed the button to the top floor. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, then turned towards me. We were standing really close, but we didn’t touch. His breathing was shallow, and my heart was racing. Once again, we got lost in each other’s eyes completely.

“Jesus…” His voice was nothing more than a whisper.

“What?”

He didn’t answer. He also still didn’t touch me, although I desperately wanted him to.

The elevator had arrived at the top floor, and the doors pinged open.

He just grabbed my arm and basically dragged me through the hallway. When we arrived in front of his suite, he nervously searched his pockets for his keycard. He pulled it through once, twice — nothing, the light stayed red.

“Fucking hell, seriously?” His hands were shaking, and I thought to myself how sweet it was to see him so nervous and out of his depth.

I gently took the card out of his hand and tried it. The light turned green, and I opened the door with a smile. Julian looked at me for a second, still holding my arm, and then pulled me in. He turned around in an instant and pushed the door shut, both of his hands resting right next to my head, keeping me trapped between his body and the door.

We were standing like this for what seemed like an eternity, just looking at each other, breathing heavily. He moved even closer, and his body was now touching mine. I really felt like I was going to combust any second.

And then he kissed me.

Gently at first. He had moved his hands away from the door, one resting on my shoulder, the other cupping my face. His lips were soft, and he seemed cautious, as if he wasn’t too sure if he really had my permission. To reassure him, I ran my hands up his chest and opened my mouth slightly. The kiss became deeper, and his hands moved lower and pulled me in closer. I arched my back, and our hips touched. Before I knew, he had lifted me up and pushed me against the door. I wrapped my legs around him, and our kiss turned more desperate and breathless.

The street-lamps were the only source of light, and when Julian carried me, he bumped into a chair. We both started to chuckle. It only lasted for a moment though, and he kissed me again, stumbling towards the bed, before we finally fell on top of it.

We were both still wearing our heavy coats and winter jackets, and I made some fumbling attempts to open the zip on his. He stopped kissing me.

“Wait,” he whispered breathlessly, sat up and opened his jacket, only to toss it on the floor carelessly. I unbuttoned my coat, and he helped me to get out of it.

Julian ran his hands down my flanks, quickly lifted my top and pulled it over my head. He paused and just looked at me, running his fingers through my hair, before he kissed me again. I so desperately wanted to feel him and ran my hands underneath his shirt.

He drew in a sharp breath and laughed quietly. “Your hands are freezing!”

“Sorry. I’m very nervous.”

“Me, too.”

I moved back my head and looked at him. “Really?”

He just nodded, and I could feel that he was trembling slightly.

“You’re shaking. Is it my hands?”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes for a second, breathed in deeply, and then opened them to look at me again. “It’s actually all of you.”

I took off his shirt and kissed his chest. When Julian took off my bra, I felt self-conscious all of a sudden, despite the dark room. He gently put his hands on my shoulders.

“Please let me look at you.”

I didn’t know why, but I involuntarily crossed my arms in front of my chest, feeling an embarrassed smile creep up my face.

He took my hands, shook his head and whispered: “Don’t hide from me.” Then he carefully pushed my arms aside.

He moved slightly to the side, and the outside lights hit me softly. His lips parted, releasing a gentle breath. It was all I needed to reassure me. No one had ever looked at me like this, and it completely floored me.

Julian kissed me again, gently but very deeply, and pulled me on top of him. I ran my hands down his body until I could feel the button of his jeans. I unfastened it and let my hand slide inside. He held his breath for a second when I touched him, and then just surrendered to my probing fingers.

After a while, Julian looked at me, breathing heavily. “God, I wanted to do this all day!”

I stared at him, wide-eyed. “You did?”

He chuckled. “You bloody well know I did!”

Within an instant, he turned me on my back and kissed me before he jumped up to kick off his shoes and take off his jeans. He knelt beside me again, ran his fingers down my legs and took my boots off, one after the other. His hands ran up the insides of my thighs, and he touched me between my legs almost casually. I inhaled very audibly. He smiled, let his hands glide higher and started to unbutton my jeans. When he had taken them off, a thought ran through my mind, and I knew I had to ask. I didn’t even have to because the very same moment, he started to swear.

“Shit, I don’t have condoms!” He just fell over backwards, put one elbow over his face and laughed quietly.

“What’s so funny about that?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He turned to face me. The whole situation was absurd, and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

I turned towards him and propped myself up on my arm. “I’m sort of glad you don’t have any.”

“Why?”

“Well, I would have probably found it more unsettling if a married man had a pack of condoms on him when he’s not with his wife.”

He turned serious in an instant. “Do you think that’s what I’m like?”

I hesitated for a second. “No.” And I really believed it, as stupid as it might have been.

We were lying on our sides, facing each other, and I gently caressed his face. “Are we making a mistake here?”

“I’m beyond caring…”

He pulled me closer and kissed me again. I still wanted him so desperately, and the fire was lit again within an instant.

“Wait…” I gently wrestled myself out of his embrace, started tiptoeing towards the entrance and ran into the chair again. “Shit!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to switch on the lights?”

“No, just give me a second.”

I tried to find my bag, and once I had spotted it on the floor right next to the door, I started rummaging through it.

“What are you doing?”

I came back, fell on the bed and held the condom up in front of Julian’s face.

“Oh no, you don’t!” He faked being offended.

“Well, I’m single. Better safe than sorry.” I had to suppress a grin. “Disappointed?”

He laughed. “I’ll think about that later.” Then he turned serious again. “No, I’m actually very, very glad…”

We kissed, but the gentleness was gone. We were both desperate and impatient. I ran my fingers inside his boxers and started to pull them down until I had to move aside to take them off. I started to fumble at the condom wrapper and looked at Julian sheepishly.

“Can I help?” he asked, half mockingly, half seriously.

“I think I’m okay.”

He grabbed my briefs and took them off rather unceremoniously, over-stretching the elastic in the process, which turned them into a shapeless mess. I looked at him with fake indignation, mouth open.

“Sorry,” he whispered with a chuckle, but it was obvious he didn’t mean it.

I lay down on my back and smilingly reached out to take his hand, pulling him on top. For a moment, he just looked at me, gently rocking his pelvis against mine. Did he have second thoughts?

I ran my fingers through his hair. “Are you still sure? We can stop, and no one will ever know…”

“If you can stop now, you’ve got superhuman self-control!” He smiled, but it only lasted for a second, and he turned really serious. “You only have to say stop, I hope you know that?”

I knew he’d never understand why, but his saying this was one of the very reasons I wanted him, more than anyone could ever imagine.

“I don’t want you to stop.” I tilted my pelvis slightly and directed him where I needed him to be.

Julian gently slipped inside me, still looking into my eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

He kissed me again and started to move very slowly. It was so overwhelming, and it didn’t take long until I began to lose control.

“Wait!” I whispered breathlessly.

“What?” He stopped and looked concerned.

I tried to catch my breath. “I’ve been single for some time, and despite my carrying around condoms, I actually haven’t done this for a while.” I laughed, and it made him smile in return. “I’m really struggling to pace myself. We’ll need to take it slow, or…” I could feel myself blushing at the complete and utter embarrassment of admitting that I really couldn’t control myself.

“You’re very sweet,” he started to move again, “but I really don’t want you to hold back.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to if we go on like this.” I felt myself involuntarily grinding against him, torn between trying to slow myself down and letting go, and I started to breathe heavily again. In a feeble attempt to set the pace, I wrapped my legs around him, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

“Just let go. It really turns me on, don’t worry about me.”

He was still moving rather slowly, but the feeling was so intense and deep that I simply couldn't fight it. I started to tremble and everything tightened. Trying to suppress a moan just seemed to make me louder. And then it was over, but it also felt as if it weren’t.

Julian watched me closely, still moving inside me, a small frown appearing between his brows.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“If you only knew how hot it is to see you get off like that, you wouldn't apologise.”

“I’m…”

“Ssh.”

He had found his own rhythm, deep and strong, and we both broke out in a sweat when he picked up pace. I pulled his head towards my face to kiss him. His breathing was hard and fast, and I felt it inside me like I felt him inside me. His body began to tense up, and he came quietly, shaking slightly, his hands buried in my hair.

He kissed me again and again, softer and more gently. His breathing slowed down, and his body began to relax...

[airplanned]

Frequently Asked Questions from the last two days:

There have been a lot of questions shot my way lately, and I'm a little overwhelmed. Sorry if I've missed anything.

Recurring things:

"I was going to do NaNo this year, but now I guess I won't!" NO! Writing is great! Just don't use their website! There are other online trackers if you don't feel like using excel. There are other online writing communities. I recommend 4theWords. I recommend finding out what your former ML is doing or asking your local library/bookstore if they're hosting anything.

"I didn't know there was an organization. What did they even do?" They had a website that tracked your progress and hosted an online forum of writers also doing NaNo. They also hosted the Young Writer's Program, which mostly ran out of schools and had more direction than the adult version. They also supported the MLs, who hosted in person write-ins, kick off parties, and occasionally a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner. Also, the sponsors of NaNoWriMo would often give discounts to winners. This is how everyone I know in real life affords Scrivner.

"Why is this time stamped from July?" A NaNoWriMo timeline of events: In 2023, there was a grooming scandal. It was ignored for months and then handled poorly. Later that year (*correction: it was in 2024), in response to the grooming scandal, they offered the MLs (Municipal Liaisons) new contracts that required them to moderate their regional forums, accept all liability for behavior at their in-person write-ins and their regional forums, and threw in an anti-defamation clause for good measure. In July of 2024, they posted on tumblr about "Ethical Ways to use AI." My screenshots result from that debacle. In September, they put out their official AI policy, and here we are.

"Why are you canceling them now and not over the grooming scandal?" My history with NaNoWriMo: I started doing NaNo in 2009. I stopped using the site in 2019, when the website was so glitchy that it wouldn't keep track of my word count, but I kept doing the challenge without them. I deleted my account in 2023 when the ML scandal broke. I forgot to unfollow them on Tumblr, because they don't post much. When I saw their July AI post, I commented "Boooo!" and unfollowed them. They promptly slid into my DMs.

[tsunflowers]

ok I've seen people talking shit about nanowrimo bc they officially endorsed ai and said being anti-ai is both ableist and classist but I'm looking into it further and it seems the organization has been imploding for a while. they had a scandal where a moderator on the teen forums was accused of grooming teens that the organization handled very poorly and then maybe in order to stop anything similar from happening they tried to get their volunteer organizers to sign bizarre contracts

it seems like your classic example of a grassroots organization getting big before anyone there learns how to run a large non-profit but even if your organization is held together by duct tape and a prayer you can't ignore grooming allegations

[the960writers]

The Nanowrimo thing is honestly so baffling.

I liked this video for an overview, also going back to the grooming scandal of last year (which... really? REALLY?).

Nanowrimo is done for. It's really sad.

It feels like there's only three people left on the board and they are... not good at PR.

[the-wip-project]

40k in 42 days, day 32

Hello writerly friends! 

Oh boy, that was a few exciting days, wasn't it? With Nanowrimo shitting the bed (context , context) it's almost sad that our project is already coming to an end. I think lots of people would be ready for an alternative now. Honestly, seeing Nanowrimo imploding is also really sad. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt after last year's scandal with the youth forums, but not only did they not really acknowledge that incident, they decided to lean into being shit. 

Anyway, I feel like this should motivate us even more to get at least close to our goals. We don't need Nanowrimo to write, we just need a goal and some friends to write along with us. 

Some of you have already surpassed your goal or are really close to it, I can see that in mywriteclub. Congratulations, you're doing amazing!

If you've fallen behind, don't worry about it. Even if you wrote only a few words, that's more words than you had before. I haven't hit my target of 1000 words per day in quite a while but before I build up the guilt about that, I remind myself of the Terry Pratchett way of writing. Terry Pratchett set his goal to 400 words per day. That's all, just 400 words, proving that persistence and regularity are the keys to success. 

Let's keep writing. If we keep adding words, we will get to the end of that story one day. And then we'll do it all again for the next story. And again, and again.

Because we're writers. 

[duckprintspress]

I know almost nothing about NaNoWriMo but I would love to hear what you mean about "the last five years". What have they don't in the last years (before this current bullshit) to make the experience worse than before?

Hey!

So, I first heard about NaNoWriMo in like...2005? 2006?...and made my own first attempt in 2012, so I've been around for a while.

For me personally, three major things stand out as being issues:

In 2019, NaNo rolled out a new webpage, consolidating what had once been two different webpages - the main NaNo page and the Camp NaNo page. This roll out was, to put it gently, a fucking disaster, and broke much of the website, and at least for me made it nigh-unusable. It also nerfed the forums.

Late last year, grooming allegations came out against moderators and staff. You can read more about it here. I never looked into it much, and it was very difficult to tell what actually happened with the backlash - what was proven, etc. - and I just don't know much about it, but it certainly made me extremely wary.

And the current nonsense, which it sounds like you're aware of.

I've also known multiple regional coordinators (ML = Municipal Liaisons) and while they've not shared specifics and even if they had, I wouldn't feel at liberty to share what was shared with me, the general consensus is that the treatment of the volunteer MLs has gotten progressively worse, and the forums and boards increasingly unusable, to the extent that a lot of people I know have "broken off" their regions - my home region, for example, operates a writer group, founded originally through NaNo, now completely separate from NaNo because NaNo fucked up just that bad. Like I said, I don't know the details, but I trust my friends that if they say it was untenable, it was untenable.

All in all, since the website merge, they've made it clear they don't care about the feedback they receive, seemed to almost be going out of their way to damage the community-building aspects of the webpage that were always one of the most valuable parts of the experience, and just generally haven't managed things like the scandal in #2 well.

Honestly, I basically stopped using NaNo after the merge. I managed, I think, two more years after that (not winning NaNo, but I won a couple Camp NaNos with my own word count goal in, like, 2019 and 2020).

The reason the current issues have prompted me to delete is that, once upon a time, it was required to enter typed text to "validate" a word count. I have no idea if NaNo retained that text in anyway, nor do I have any idea what the terms of NaNo's agreement with ProWritingAid is. All I know that even the possibility that they've got my data stored, even the chance that they might use my words to train PWA's LLM, is enough for me to go from "I no longer use this or wish to us this" to "I am immediately deleting."

Hopefully, deleting actually removes my data. I wasn't able to take the time to read their updated ToS enough to actually be sure. But it's the one thing in my power to do, so I did it.

Sorry I don't have more detail to make rubbernecking the drama more fun, lol. :D

-unforth

[spnfanficpond]

Weekly Pond Newsletter

This week is #SPNWEEK over on that bird app formerly known as Twitter! Tag us over there (same name as here) and we'll RT your tweets!

Old Business:

New Member Spotlight - The post for August is up and you can click here to meet a new friend!

Angel Fish Awards - The post (finally) went up for the August Angel Fish Awards! Click here for some awesome fic recs!

New Signup Form - We have put into place a new way to join the Pond! Instead of contacting an admin, potential new members can now simply fill out a form. The form includes our Conduct Rules, explanations of our different membership types, and some questions so we can get to know these new people better! At the end of the form are important links like an invite to our Discord server, our FAQ, and links to our sister blogs. If you or someone you know is interested in joining the Pond, click here to see the form!

Fishing For Treasures - This week the @fanficocean is celebrating SPN fics! Head on over there to a LOT of awesome SPN fics! In two weeks, we will be celebrating non-SPN fics for our FFT weekend. If you write for other fandoms and would like to participate, click here for all the details!

Last week's #TweetFicTues prompts -

New Business:

NaNoWriMo - November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. In the past year, the official NaNoWriMo organization has had some scandals, and most recently has made a startling decision regarding the use of AI. (Spoiler alert - They're all for it, possibly because one of their sponsors this year is an AI company.) Admin Michelle feels really strongly about encouraging every writer to do NaNoWriMo, even without using the official site for tracking or community purposes. We feel that the Pond has the community, so all we need is tracking capabilities and we can do this thing on our own. We are testing out some possible ways to do this, but we would LOVE your feedback! Do you want tools you can use privately for tracking, or would you like to publicly update your word count for the world to see? Would you like to see a roster of Pond writers and their word counts so you can race each other, or would seeing someone writing faster than you discourage you? Do you prefer Google Sheets for tracking, or would a message thread in a Discord channel be better? All opinions and suggestions are welcome! To keep things all in one place, please reply to this post here with your feelings!

Competitive Writing Sprints - On Thursday, Manta Ray Arthur will be hosting a session of writing sprints for prizes in our Discord server! Add words to your WIP and win fabulous prizes!

SPN Rewatch: FanFic Edition - Next weekend, we will be discussing the next two episodes in our rewatch: 3.01 The Magnificent Seven and 3.02 The Kids Are Alright. For more information on how the rewatch works, click here to view The Archive!

Manta Ray chat in the Discord server - After the Rewatch chat next weekend, and a break for lunch and a nap, Admin Michelle will be hanging around to chat with everyone! Have questions about the Pond? Want to chat about this NaNoWriMo thing? Want to do low-pressure writing sprints to force her to get stuff done? Hop into the server on Saturday and we'll do it!

Writer Hangout with Manta Ray Laili - Laili wants to try something new that we think is awesome! We have never used our voice channels in the Discord server for anything, and she'd like to change that. So, on Sunday next weekend, head into the General voice channel and have a hangout with your fellow writers! Encourage your fellow writers, talk about hangups, or chat about anything else that comes to mind. Since this is new, anything can happen, so be there to experience the first one!

(Divider by @glygriffe!)

That’s all for this week! To see all Pond events, and also other SPN-related things like conventions and online concerts, check out our Google calendar! Click here for a static view in Eastern US/Canada time (desktop only, no mobile app access, sadly), and click here to add our calendar to your own Google calendar! We try to keep it as up-to-date as possible. If there’s something you want to see on the calendar that’s not there (maybe a convention we missed, cast birthdays, or something similar), send us an ASK and let us know!

Hope you have a great week! - From your Admins and Manta Rays, @manawhaat, @mrswhozeewhatsis, @mariekoukie6661, @thoughtslikeaminefield, @heavenssexiestangel, and @spn-fanfic-reblog-writes!