#on the old nanowrimo forums

[daybreak-avenue]

Bird Of Passage

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Boy leaves in autumn.

Gone winter, spring, and summer,

He's back the next fall.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Post NaNoWriMo - Now What?

So if you've only been loosely paying attention, the NaNoWriMo organization has collapsed in a controversy of mismanagement, lack of oversight, abusive forum moderation and a whole host of issues that's resulted in souring the whole thing for a great deal of people. While the spirit of NaNoing will probably continue, a lot of people understandably don't want anything to officially do with the organization anymore.

But you - like I have - still think NaNoWriMo has been very useful to get writing done. Here's some ideas on how to keep going.

How to Get Started

Think Local - All those places you used for NaNo events, libraries, schools, cafes, etc - may be more than willing to launch something similar with enough interest. Just because it won't have the NaNoWriMo name slapped on it doesn't meant it can't continue. My local library has started a monthly write-in event, for example.

Take the Initiative - If you know of a group that you usually NaNo with, it's never too late or early to reach out to them about create an alternative plan. You probably aren't the only one thinking about it!

Talk to your (former) ML - Many Municipal Liaisons I know feel burned by NaNo and won't join it again, but they did love running the event. My local ML is continuing our group under a different name, and yours might appreciate getting assistance or sharing resources about how to run a month-long writing event if you ask.

Find Your People - If you're in school, new to an area, or just not good at reaching out, I feel you. But if you do nothing, you get nothing. Reach out to people you know. Online Discord or Zoom meetings can work just as well as in-person events if you're too remote or broke to meet.

What to Use to Get Started

Shut up and Write provides quick and easy ways to find local groups or form your own to carry the write-in momentum all year round.

MyWriteClub copies the writing tracking method of NaNoWriMo to keep track of your wordcount.

Pacemaker Planner offers multiple ways to track your writing.

Regular old Excel. Or LibreOffice if you'd prefer to wash your hands of Microsoft. It's not as exciting, but a regular spreadsheet with an AutoSum of your daily progress can work just as well as a fancy website.

You can keep going with the NaNo energy without the official name. My local library has started a monthly write-in, and I know many people who have found success with Shut Up and Write. Look into what works for you!

[penny-anna]

the official NaNoWriMo website exists bcos back when the event first started (1999) social media wasn't really a Thing yet so if you wanted to do an event like that you made a website. I'm not sure where ppl are getting this idea that it was originally some kind of wild & free social media challenge. it's older than pretty much every currently used social network.

when i first started doing NaNoWrimo twitter was only a year old, facebook had only just become open to non-students, etc. i didn't have any social media accounts. i think i was a Gaia Online user at the time.

all of the discussion and energy around the event took place on the NaNoWriMo forum. it was the place for talking to other people who were doing the challenge. you wanted to cheer on other users or share your progress or talk about your project you went to the NaNo forum.

it was a very different internet! forum culture's not completely gone but it's taken a huge dip basically everywhere but reddit.

[airplanned]

I'm glad the shitty online author community is falling apart over AI, it's what everyone deserves

Huh. Okay, Anon.

So I too am glad that NaNoWriMo as an organization is falling apart, because they have been making bad decisions for years now, and at the point when the Feds got involved, it was time for the organization to quit giving a important community event a bad name.

But this ask gives me pause, because a large portion of the community is not shitty, and they don't deserve to have their fun community event besmirched like this. My regional MLs were rock stars for years. I used to do NaNo with my writing friends, and we would meet at a beer garden and have a great time. One of my fondest memories is of going to a write-in with my 3-month-old strapped to my chest.

A lot of people on the NaNo forums were exhausting. There is a lot of good discussion to be had about if "just write!" is a successful strategy to eventually create an finished novel. But that does not negate that writing a lot in November is a Big Deal in the writing community, and that I love the friends I have made in that community.

Furthermore, NaNoWriMo (the organization) cannot take NaNoWriMo (the challenge) away from us. Resources are already popping up, getting ready for the Big Deal in November, and I encourage everyone to not give up on writing their novel because one website sucks, but to instead join better, local writing groups and events this November.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

I first signed up for NaNoWriMo in 21 October, 2005; I logged into NaNoWriMo 5 September, 2024, in order to delete my account.

Thanks to the entity now embracing A.I. as a "Tool."

(After looking back at my stats).

There were a couple years where I tried to do multiple challenges in a year, burning out, not participating, and then coming back.

According to my profile, there, I started 19 distinct projects, between the November marathon proper and "Camp NaNoWriMo," with a total of 605K-and-a-bit words typed out. My last registered project was in 2020. I did not reach 50K that year; I think it was about that time that I realized simply typing 50k words at breakneck speed did not lead to crafting a story I actually still wanted to tell, come December (what really kept me coming back, over and over in spite of that, was the social permission to make a pillow fort out of an imaginary world, where I could retreat from seasonal attitudinal depression, and other pressures; Pillow forts aren't meant to be permanent).

Back when I started, in 2005, NaNoWriMo was a much different beast than it is now... There were no corporate sponsors, and the only prize you could claim was a winner's T-shirt. And the social vibe was a lot more like the spontaneous writers' communities that sprung up on old school Bulletin Board Systems, IRC chat rooms (remember those?), and Usenet forums.

(All of which I miss, BTW)

[songweretson]

In 2015, I really wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but I had no computer, no phone, no tech at all, because I was broke. At the time I was also breaking down so often I could barely breathe.

So I wrote 50,000 words by hand, in old notebooks. I worked out a system to track my word count in the margins. I figured out my average wordcount per page, so I knew how many pages I had to do every day.

So, please, NaNo. Tell me again how disliking AI is "classist".

And yes, I know that I'm very lucky that I was physically able to do that. But where there's a will, there's a way. If you want to write a book, you're going to write a book. (A few years later, my first book was mostly written on my phone, because I was writing every spare minute I had between work, while I was on the bus, etc.)

Nevermind that a large part of their statement focused on using AI tools to edit, saying not everyone has access to other people to help them edit and improve. But like... Wasn't that the whole point of having a community around NaNo? You have forums where people can connect, build friendships, share resources, and even help each other.

But, oh... Wait. You couldn't be bothered to make sure your forums were safe. You let someone run around grooming your underage members, saying there was nothing you could do about it, because he took it to different sites.

And when you're called out for working with questionable people, you give some nonsense about how gatekeeping, and how it's supposed to be about the art.

Whatever. The lack of understanding is just what I would expect from people who support AI.

So, thanks for the memories. But I'm glad I outgrew you a long time ago.

[capesandshapes]

Friendly reminder not to partake in nanowrimo via their website or engage with their organization this year.

There's so many alternatives to nanowrimo in so many different fringe groups that are doing their own novel writing challenges in November.

You can also make the decision just to do the challenge and not engage with the organization at all.

But please for the love of God do not partake in nanowrimo and continue to support them now that they have decided to voice their support for generative ai on top of all of their other bullshit as of late.

The truth of the matter is that AI can be an important aid for new writers and old-- dictation and AI proofreading tools can be important assets to so many different people. Provided that you understand the complications and limitations that that assistive ai can have. Not every single dictated word is going to come out perfectly, and there's not a single person in writing today who would tell you that grammarly, prowritingaid, and all the others are any substitute for a real editor. They're only meant to catch the larger errors and make an editor's job easier-- and their datasets have been polluted and become less effective over time.

Assistive AI has its own problems, and can grow worse over time depending on what it is, but it's not what has writers up in arms about nano this year.

Nanowrimo decided to endorse generative ai, which scraps the creative works of thousands of nonconsenting writers and throw it all together in a word soup meant to match up to a paragraph long prompt. They decided to hold on to the 55,000 words goal, knowing that for some people that would represent hundreds of hours of work, and for others it would represent five minutes typing to a chat bot.

There's so much less genuine work and resilience associated with writing a novel via generative ai. Forum posts of people struggling to finish their novels and seeking out support suddenly lose that gleam of human connection and understanding when someone is literally just a post down looking for tech support to help figure out why their automatic writing machine isn't doing the writing thing good.

And all of the ai crap was after it was discovered that a major member in the organization was grooming minors, and exploiting a forum space where young writers were encouraged to seek connection.

Fuck nanowrimo.

Go join one of the many queer, feminist, or poc spaces to write novels this year. There's literally a group for every single niche. Like there's not even just identity related groups, I'm pretty sure there's like a nanowrimo for Greek god retellings this year. Go find one of them and join them instead.

[shifting-shadows-writes]

hi. i'm back.

to my lovely lovely friends, i am so sorry for abandoning y'all. especially @sorrowlovingbirds i hope you are doing alright and i would love to stay in contact with you.

it's almost november again and i'm finally in a good spot to share a bit about what has happened in the past year and honestly before that too.

i'm putting this below a cut. this is long and chaotic and i'm really sorry that this is my returning post to tumblr and my little ywp community but i owe y'all an explanation, and i'm hoping i can speak out now about what i experienced.

this is my turn to step forward about the nano drama of last year, and my apology letter to any friends i've worried.

(tw the nanodrama, mental health spirals, toxic/abusive friendships, bigotry and threats)

for any of y'all who see this post and don't know me, my name is shadows. my first foray into the online world was the nanowrimo young writers program forums.

i'm sure many of y'all have heard about the abuse and trauma many of us have faced, and if you haven't, my friends have plenty of posts about it.

i joined the forums in april of 2020. i was lonely and isolated and the community there helped me figure myself out.

i wasn't particularly active most of the time. i had a few friends. people i knew and liked drifted in and out, and i had no way to contact them.

i ended up in a toxic friendship with someone on nano and it took a year to cut that off. i was going through my own separate mental health shit at the time so i didn't really realize how bad that person was for me for a while.

that was the first time i really learned people on nano and the internet weren't always who they said they were. i had learned internet safety and i kept my own life fairly private, but it didn't occur to me that other people who didn't keep their lives private could lie about the details.

at some point i joined the ywp discord server, moderated by basically the popular kids of the forums. (i hope y'all don't mind that i say this; it's how i viewed it.)

i learned other kids had been going through some of the same stuff i had--bullying, grooming, etc and had received little to no support from the moderators for it.

collectively we had a very jaded view of nano, but i think we all felt it was our duty to protect other younger users. (this led many members of this server to spiral in mental health because they had to deal with all the drama.)

but things were okay ish for me. i had recovered and i was pretty active on both the nano forums and the discord server.

then october 7, 2023 happened. (it will become very clear why this is relevant soon.)

i am not a politically involved person. i know a little between history class and what my parents have explained to me, but political dynamics always confused me and upset me so i generally avoided things.

being a jewish kid, i had a vague understanding of israeli history. i knew it existed and how old it was and i could recognize it on a map. i knew there was an ongoing war and that it was complicated. i knew the idf had mandatory service from my israeli camp counselors (most of whom had served roles other than active fighters) and i was confused that people would attack gal gadot for having served when it's mandatory. but that was it. my working knowledge of israel was basically nonexistent.

and all of a sudden, i was expected to know everything.

nano had a lot of jewish kids, all of whom seemed to know way more than i did. i got most of my information from them, and from my parents. (a little from school.)

in theory, i'd had lessons on the history of zionism and different branches of what zionism agreed with, i'd read israeli founding documents, i'd had a brief history of the conflict explained to me.

in practice, i hadn't paid attention to any of that. i didn't know what was going on, but i knew that i was expected to. i also didn't trust non-jews to give me information, in part due to a specific incident on nano which happened a few weeks later.

on october 13 somewhere in my community was targeted with a bomb threat. i told my friends on nano about it because it was scary and i wanted support. they gave it to me.

i also ended up writing and posting a brief overview of antisemitism (using knowledge i'd gathered from hebrew school and the internet for fact checking). here is the link to that if anyone wants to read it. the wording was last updated in december 2023.

it was pretty common practice on the nano forums to write a psa about something you'd noticed or that had affected you recently, and i had several other people say they would like a psa on antisemitic tropes and dogwhistles.

not long after i posted that, someone in a "diverse character help" thread asked for help writing a palestinian character. i will call them eva as that was part of their username and i need to refer to them.

one of my friends who is from northern israel responded with a bit of basic background information.

the response eva provided did not seem to line up with anything my friend had said. i was already wary of a non-jewish non-palestinian person writing a story about israeli/palestinian dynamics as that is incredibly complex, and i could tell eva was not well informed.

so i responded to the thread, warning eva that this was a sensitive and complicated topic and as a jew i felt someone israeli or palestinian should be writing this book. if eva isn't from israel like my friend is, maybe don't write a main character from the area. let actual palestinians tell their stories.

(unfortunately, i do not have my exact wording, though i did save their posts. i will be paraphrasing my responses to the best of my ability; i will paraphrase eva's and pull relevant quotes.)

eva responded to my message by saying: "Im not from PALESTINE, but I am VERY familiar with the topic" (even though they didn't seem to be).

they continued: "I want to inform people about the TRUTH. [...] Maybe you should try doing more research as to what is ACTUALLY happening, not what the internet and social networks have been lying to you about."

a reminder here that i had not mentioned anything more than: leave talking about palestinian trauma to palestinians. not what "side" i took (it is so much more complicated than that).

they continued to accuse me of not having a heart or having a bit of human in myself.

my antisemitism dogwhistle alert was blaring. i had just spent a week writing that psa, and here were real life examples of exactly the tropes i had been talking about!

but i kept my cool. mostly. i held a hope they could be reasoned with. "don't write this, please. you do not know what you're talking about. i think your perception of the conflict is just going to hurt people."

i need to include most of their next post.

"Netanyahu even said he will not stop bombing, killing and torturing Palestinians. The media has really gotten to you. Even some Jews are on the side of the truth, because they know, killing thousands of innocent civilians is wrong. Are you going to ignore the protests that are going on, because HUMANS actually care? You don't have to be Muslim to support the ones who are oppressed. I hope God puts you in the same situation as the Palestinians are going through right now. And I hope that you get to experience that. Does it really not hurt you to see kids bombed into pieces, getting Phosphoric Acid on you? Have YOU ever talked to a Palestinian because I have. You are blind as to what is going on. And don't come at me saying, "WeLl WhAt AbOuT hAmAs? At least they know who to challenge. You evacuated from Germany because of Hitler, and now you're doing the same. Netanyahu is Hitler in disguise. Beheading babies! Is that normal to you? If so, I hope you figure out what is right and what is wrong, and not being influenced by the media."

this whole paragraph was full of antisemitism accusing jews of being inhuman and controlling the media. and accusing me of being inhuman and unable to tell right from wrong.

the kicker is that i mentioned zero politics. i did not mention netanyahu or how i feel about him. i did not mention hamas or how i feel about them.

but what really got me was this: "I hope God puts you in the same situation as the Palestinians are going through right now. And I hope that you get to experience that. Does it really not hurt you to see kids bombed into pieces"

i had received an active bomb threat about a week beforehand. i didn't need to imagine going through that--i very nearly had.

i couldn't respond. i knew i would respond poorly and i would say something i didn't mean.

luckily, my friend stepped in once again and agreed with me, telling eva to stop and that they were misinformed. my friend, having lived in israel, had more knowledge of the active situation than me and tried to explain this to eva.

and eva responded with this:

"At least YOU actually have some knowledge but not enough. I will not say any more because I don't want to waste my precious words on you guys. [...] But, at the end, false knowledge doesn't work on me. Israelis and Jews are different, as I've heard and seen from different Jews myself."

if someone who lived in the area doesn't have enough knowledge, who does?

this rant is cut down because after saying they "don't want to waste [their] precious words" on us, they continued to accuse us of being immoral, uninformed, and duped by the media.

then finally: "israelis and jews are different." what? does the media controlling immoral inhuman stereotype only apply to israelis? are half of the world's jews different from the other half?

more of the same conversation happened. other users stepped in defending me from a literal bomb threat and the accusation that jews or israelis or "the media" or whatever else were corrupt, immoral, and inhuman.

the whole thread was removed, though some people asked for my original response (leave these stories to people who have actually experienced it) to stay up, as it was an important point.

this was one of many frustrating moderation decisions made recently on the site, and one of many where a mod stepped in only when things got wildly out of hand. (not to mention the speed of moderation response suggested the mod had been active while that conversation had been ongoing.

it was also one of the last straws for us. just a few days later, we posted about what we had faced on the ywp site to the main forums.

y'all can find what happened next on my friends' accounts. there was drama and investigations and a ton more stuff we didn't even know about.

i was glad we had kept receipts from all the times we had felt hurt. we had evidence that we were being mistreated, and the adults on the main site rallied to our side.

it turns out the main staff didn't even know the teens had a separate forum space on our own website.

the forums were shut down. i don't know if i was relieved or upset. there was a lot of community and collaborative work and safe space for so many kids out there. i know many kids from abusive families who got away with having the social media of a writing forum and found friends and explored their identities. and at the same time we faced so much shit on that site.

the discord server continued though it turned into much the same problems as the site. there were cliques and constant gossip and now it wasn't even moderated by adults but by involved teenagers.

by febuary i was stressed. it had been a rough few months for a lot of reasons, and i had happened to have a particularly bad day with people getting mad at me that i vented about. even though i put it under spoiler marks and tagged it, i was told not to post it there, which frustrated me since i'd posted much the same stuff before. then later a fight where some people disagreed with me just set me over the edge.

that was when i last posted on tumblr. i was having a meltdown and not in a good headspace.

i took a hard break. i deleted every single messaging/social app from my phone, even the ones that had nothing to do with the drama. i stopped responding to or checking things entirely.

(it turns out the discord server shut down just weeks later due to drama anyway.)

i genuinely believed that everyone hated me and the only way i could make myself deal with that was to cut off contact with everyone.

i've spent the last 6 months dealing with my shit, getting better therapy, and slowly re-engaging.

to be honest i am proud of myself that i survived until now because things were very rough and i wasn't dealing well.

i'm in college now. i'm meeting new people and making new friends. things are going a lot better.

thank you to all the people on nano that gave me advice and encouragement about college and applications, and about my family emergencies and grief.

thank you to all the people on nano who stood up for me and supported me through the toxicity i faced while y'all dealt with your own.

i hope i've been able to do the same for some of you.

to some degree, this is the grad post i'd always hoped to make. i know most people won't see this, and i don't know how many of y'all will care. but i'm ok with that now. i'm sharing to get this off my chest and maybe also hope that my friends who see this will know where i've been.

i know what the worry is like when someone disappears and we don't know if they're in trouble with their parents or if they've had a mental health crisis or something. i've seen that play out on nano before.

to anyone who knows me, you're welcome to reach out. i won't be super active on here. but i will be here for any of you who need my support. y'all gave me yours.

this is a bittersweet goodbye to nano as well. the forums have been gone for nearly a year and i will not be participating in the challenge this fall.

i will remember our little community, the good and the bad. i hope i will remember what i've learned from it.

keep writing, lovelies. keep being your amazing selves.

-shadows

[writingquestionsanswered]

I just recently came across your blog but I love it so much!! I’ve always wanted to write and have always had a passion for it. One of my bucket list items is to write a novel. Do you have any suggestions on how to come up with story ideas? I feel like I have a few ideas but they’re more suited for short stories than novels

Tackling "Bucket List" Item of Writing a Novel

Introduction to NaNoWriMo/Coming Up with Ideas

Actually, you've picked a great time to tackle this bucket list item, but we'll get more into that in a moment...

September: If you have ideas that would work for short stories, use the rest of this month to start writing them. They don't have to be perfect (or even good)... the point is to try, because good writing takes practice, and practice means bad writing leads to good writing. You can also start Filling Your Creative Well which will help make your mind a fertile ground for new ideas. You can also do writing prompts (you can find them here on Tumblr, via Google, or in creative writing prompt books.) And, read some books--or at least start reading book blurbs in genres you're interested in.

October: Happy Preptober!!! Now is the time to start gathering up ideas for your novel. You may also want to familiarize yourself with some basics like Literary Fiction vs Genre Fiction, Plot Driven vs Character Driven Stories, and Understanding Goals and Conflict. My posts Guide: How to Turn Ideas into a Story, Guide: Starting a New (Long Fiction) Story, and How to Move a Story Forward might also be helpful. You might also do a Google search for "Preptober Workbook" as many writers and writing coaches offer free or low cost workbooks that will help you develop your ideas into a novel. And why are we doing this in October???

November: Time to write your novel! Happy NaNoWriMo!!! NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) is a 24-year-old writing initiative that challenges people to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days or less. Although NaNoWriMo is just about getting a story down on paper (it doesn't have to be stellar), many popular and successful novels were drafted during NaNoWriMo, including Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Marissa Meyer's Cinder, and L.L. McKinney's A Blade So Black. NaNoWriMo is completely free and has a great web site where you can track your progress, and forums where you can chat with other participants. While there's no reward for "winning," there are usually a lot of great offers from sponsors, such as huge discounts on writing programs like Scrivener, so it's worth participating and trying to reach your goal.

You can learn more on the NaNoWriMo . org web site, and in my previous posts about NaNoWriMo:

NaNoWriMo: Picking an Idea Staying Pumped Until NaNoWriMoNaNoWriMo: Necessities for PlannersPacing Yourself During NaNoWriMo

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[nerves-nebula]

on anon for obvious reasons but we are mutuals and have chatted before. anyway your thing about having kinks back at age 10 made me laugh because it reminded me of how i went through this phase when i was 12 of being OBSESSED with medieval torture, like i knew all of the devices and techniques and public humiliation stuff and other grotesque horror shit, and i was super open about it because i Just Thought It Was Neat and had no concept of social propriety. i wrote long graphic whump about characters being tortured with said torture devices & interrogation methods. i got in trouble in class once for developing a weird fascination with mining accidents and other historical instances of people suffocating slowly to death because it was 'upsetting' the other kids. i would go on the nanowrimo adult forums and read their big torture megathread every year, where authors shared their creative and historical ideas for how to torture their characters, and i would contribute HEAVILY to these threads because i was very very very creative. obviously you know where this story ends (i now trawl ao3 daily looking for whatever E-rated horror porn has the most comments saying 'what is wrong with you' and 'this freaked me out so bad i threw up'), but i still have my fiction writing notebooks from when i was 12 and sometimes i pull them out to reminisce. and. rereading those old stories is. well!

IT SURE ISSSSS lmao. good on ya. I was too shy to ever contribute to anything and i didn't wanna get adults in trouble for talking about sexual shit with someone they didn't know was a minor SOBBB. nah but i relate to the "upsetting for other kids" thing. i dont think it ever got to the point where an adult would tell me to stop but i was very unsure of what would and wouldn't be acceptable to say to other kids and sometimes i'd say something and then go hmm. maybe that was. not ok?

OH WELL i'm an ADULT NOW i do what i want

[icarus-suraki]

You know, I feel like the Nanowrimo + AI debacle is kind of the inevitable end result of the Nanowrimo forums crisis.

You can't have public forums and total safety.

The Nanowrimo forums are shut down to provide total safety (because public forums and total safety cannot coexist).

If human users are dangerous to other human users (the reason for the forum shutdown), human users cannot provide feedback and suggestions to human users without jeopardizing total safety.

But the human users want a way to receive feedback and suggestions on their projects.

Therefore the feedback must come from a non-human non-user: an AI program.

In this way, users can have total safety (no public forums) and still receive feedback and suggestions.

Like, yeah, you can be mad if you want but short of making everyone doxx themselves to have access to the (old internet) forums, you gotta find a better method.

[themistressofdolls]

Xenos the Cat UNLEASHED

Done, every single chapter of the remaster of my previous Nanowrimo spoof story Xenos the cat unleashed is done.

Entire story is a send up to old edgy stories such as Christian humber reloaded, self inserts, 2000s forum OC characters and more. Sort of a love letter you could say.

Chapter I: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/743616576495009792/xenos-the-cat-unleashed

Chapter II: https://themistressofdolls.tumblr.com/post/744437263076917248/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-ii

Chapter III: https://themistressofdolls.tumblr.com/post/747208799126011904/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-iii

Chapter IV: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/748187552796868608/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-iv

Chapter V: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/756806867713409024/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-vi

Chapter VI: https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/760806998896984064/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-vii

Chapter VII https://www.tumblr.com/themistressofdolls/764907289684606976/xenos-the-cat-unleashed-chapter-vii

[depizan]

I forget where this template and idea came from (it has been four years)...maybe the NaNoWriMo forums? In any event, I do remember that I had a lot of fun making these, even if they might lean a little on the dramatic side of things. (And suffer a bit from my having to rely on game shots and royalty free images. If I had greater art skills, I'd probably have done homages to appropriate movies and TV shows.)

I know I posted these on here back then, but Tumblr's search feature sucks. (And I think I include the made up episodes pages as well, which I'd probably do with real "episodes" if I were doing it again.)

I'm trying to inspire myself with old ficverse stuff. Perhaps this time it will actually work.

[crossroadsdimension]

Gonna have to wait and see how things go and how I feel the closer I get to November, but...

I don't think I'm up for competing in that event this year.

Yes, I was online and was aware of everything that happened last year in NaNoWriMo. I was caught by surprise when the forums went down and while yes they definitely could've handed that better, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Forgive and move on, because they were -- hopefully -- removing the bad element from the organization. Hopefully.

But the AI fiasco at the start of September has got me feeling really, really worn out.

I've done NaNoWriMo since the early 2010s. Since I was in high school at the time, I probably should've signed up via the Young Writer's Program, but I jumped straight over that into the main site and hung out in the fandom chats of the old site after school because I didn't know how the site worked and I was signing up by myself after my mom told me about the site. Never ran into anything that people came forward with, but I don't know if the problem element was present there at the time.

NaNoWriMo been a part of my life for years, and part of the reason I'm such a writing maniac.

Shoot, last year I managed 100K words in a month. First time, and probably last time.

But considering everything that's going on...I dunno.

I've still got some things to think about, but at the very least, I'm becoming less and less inclined to give NaNoWriMo the time of day, much less a time of month.

[drbennedict-writingadvice]

hello! any advice to get out of your head for someone who hasn’t picked up writing since they were a teenager? for some reason, in my head, i view writing on my own time for fun as “embarrassing” or “cringy” simply because i’m getting older and view it as a immature hobby…

…which is obviously not true! i have a lot of respect for writers and i know you can write at any age, but whenever i open a page, i feel out of place and can’t read my old writing in fear people would look at me as immature. the same goes for creating detailed characters and storylines.

i’m not even old either (19) but i mainly wrote a lot in middle school—maybe that’s why? idk.

tdlr; any advice on writing for myself again without fear of judgement?

Hi anon,

Thanks for writing in! This is something a lot of creators struggle with especially if it’s something they did when they were younger and during a time they considered themselves to be “immature” or “cringey”. The brain is great at linking things and creating patterns, and because you wrote a lot when you were in middle school, a time period that I think is universally accepted as the worst and cringiest part of life lol, your mind linked the hobbies you did during that time to the feeling of immaturity and cringiness. The great news is that most people grow out of this phase naturally! I know it’s not exactly the same but I remember when I was just starting college I felt embarrassed to talk about the bands I liked in high school (and secretly still liked) but as I got older and became more self confident and sure of myself, I learned to unabashedly embrace those parts of myself. And nobody cared! In fact a lot of people felt the same way as I did.

But don’t worry, I’m not saying that you just have to wait it out! There are definitely things you can do to speed up this process. My first suggestion is that if you’re worried that people will think writing for fun is immature (which as a 29 year-old with a writing themed blog I promise you it’s not!) , then for right now, just don’t tell anyone! It can be your secret hobby while you learn to be more confident and rewire the way your brain thinks about this.

I’d also suggest trying to find other people who also enjoy writing either as a hobby or as a hopeful profession so you have a safe community you can explore your writing in. Surrounding yourself with like minded people can be really helpful! I remember the first time I attended a writing workshop it felt so amazing and freeing to be surrounded by people who I knew also loved writing and were never going to judge me for my passion. It’s currently national novel writing month and even if you don’t feel up to trying to write an entire novel in one month, there are still plenty of NaNoWriMo activities you can take part in. There are tons of discord channels, forums, virtual events, and in person events you could join.

A lot of it will just be reminding yourself that it’s not immature or cringey. This won’t change you knee jerk reaction overnight, but just like how positive affirmations work (at first you think it’s dumb, then it’s kind of neutral, and then you start to believe what you’re saying to yourself) after a while you’ll find that the way you think about writing has changed. Think of writers you love and admire and how you don’t think they’re immature or cringey for writing, and neither do most people! Think of Tolkien who created incredibly detailed story lines and characters, and even went so far as to create multiple fake languages that many people now genuinely learn for fun. Even if fantasy isn’t your preferred genre I have yet to meet someone who considers what he did anything less than impressive. Not once have I heard someone call what he did immature or cringey. So I think just recognizing that you have this thought pattern that your logical brain knows isn’t true, and for now just accepting that you have this cognitive dissonance and not feeling bad about it, but taking these small steps to work towards changing that thought pattern.

And finally, just write anyway! Like I said you can keep it a secret for now if you want to, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! But try to write anyway. The more you write now then the more examples your brain has to rewire writing not as something you did when you were younger and therefore something immature but as something you do now as a young adult. And don’t put too much pressure on yourself as you’re getting back into writing for the first time in a while. Do not expect that your first attempt is going to be a masterpiece, but just have fun with it! Get into the habit or writing regularly, whatever that means for you. It could be once a week, it could be every day, just do what works for your life and your schedule right now. The more you practice the more normal it’ll feel and like anything, the better you’ll get at it, which will help you feel less cringey about your writing.

I’ll leave you with one small anecdote. Any time I tell people that I’m writing a novel they are always immediately impressed. I have never had someone say anything negative about it or anyone act like it was a dumb thing to spend time on. And most of the time I hear things like “Oh I wish I could do that, but I just don’t have the dedication.” Or “Oh I always wanted to write a novel, maybe I’ll give it a try now” or “Oh me too! What writing software do you use?”

I know this was a long answer but I wanted to try and ensure I was actually helpful! Please always feel free to reach out if you have other questions, or if you ever just need another reminder that there is nothing immature or cringey about wanting to write in your free time.

[daily-rayless]

My old OCs Ana and Dan. They were from the one and only time I ever attempted NaNoWriMo. Did not succeed, did not finish the book. On the NaNoWriMo forums of the era, they talked about what you should do when you were writer's blocked -- introduce the Shovel of Doom. Whatever's happening in your novel, toss in a shovel and see what happens next. So in one scene, where Dan and Ana are talking at night and making their way into a sinkhole to look at a cow skeleton (it's the country, there isn't much to do) and Dan's still figuring out that the new girl in town is secretly a goddess, he steps on a shovel, hurts his leg, then unaccountably is healed by Ana. And then Ana continues down into the sinkhole and psychically communes with the cow skeleton because she's much more interested in that.

Anyway, the Shovel of Doom did work, I did get more words on the page and character development. It's not the worst trick in the book.