Further Thoughts on the Enshittification of NaNoWriMo

 Well, well, the word got out, didn't it? The folks at NaNoWriMo HQ have edited the page where they called objections to AI ableist and classist, and posted a statement that comes down to "sorry if it came across that we were accusing AI critics of being ableist and classist, we didn't really mean it quite like that, and, no, we're not going to apologize to the people we used as human shields to justify our argument."

Is this really the hill you want to die on, NaNoPeople? Because I think you're going to die on it.

That said, there are some things I've been seeing that starting to nark at me and if I can rant about Oxford commas, I can rant about these things, too.

1. They're going to sell your novels to the AI people! Nobody who declares this actually has evidence, of course, it's just "the sort of thing they would do." I see this a lot from people who don't seem to understand how NaNoWriMo works in the first place. For a while, you did indeed cut and paste your novel-in-progress to get an official wordcount, but nothing was retained--it counted it and deleted it. Had they held onto it, the costs of storing periodically updated drafts for hundreds of thousands of people would have been untenable for a wee nonprofit. As it was, doing an official wordcount by the cut-and-paste method got to be too much of a strain on the system so now you just type in the numbers yourself. They cannot offer your work up to the AI gods, because they do not have access to it. Anything you posted in your profile (excerpts, etc.) was probably snurched up for free a long time ago.

2. I think this NaNoWriMo thing is just stupid, anyway. Good riddance! I've seen a lot of variations on this ranging from "November is a stupid month to write a novel in; I've got cookies to bake" to "NaNoWriMo is an annoying abbreviation." Well, how about you just keep on keepin' on with your Not Doing It and give those of us who did enjoy it a little space to grieve.

3. They're just in it for the money! I seriously saw somebody describe the organization behind NaNoWriMo as a "for-profit corporation" and I was too flabbergasted to make a correction. It's a nonprofit, folks. A nonprofit in the arts. Nobody's getting rich off of this.

This year will be the 25th anniversary of National Novel Writing Month. I don't know if this is the year it collapses or whether it peters out over time. The thing that really drew me to it was the community, the collective sense of "we're going to do something reckless and we're going to have a blast doing it." NaNoWriMo doesn't advertise, to my knowledge; word-of-mouth is what got me there and got others there. When that word shuts down, what happens? And what's going to hold the writers that do show up? The forums are closed, most of the Municipal Liaisons have quit, what's left for people to connect with?

What indeed.


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