NaNoWriMo officially announces its closure
How many people are happy about NaNoWriMo closing?
For me, it’s bittersweet.
We come to you today with sad news. After six years of struggling to sustain itself financially, NaNoWriMo (the nonprofit) will begin the process of shutting down.
This is how they announced their close—in an email. While there isn’t anything official on their website that I could find, their email stated financial reasons, but we all know it was more than that which led to their demise.
Maybe I was part of the problem.
NaNoWriMo helped me create many books. By participating, I focused and dedicated time to crafting horrible rough drafts, some of which were finished and published. Others were finished but never saw a second draft. And then there are the failed stories that are sitting half-written in a folder called “IN PROGRESS.”
Either way, NaNoWriMo was a great concept and helped so many people who need accountability partners. Writing can be lonely but NaNo provided a sense of community to some.
I only utilized part of it. I never went to the a meeting though I did attend a swag meet—only to go, pick up a bag of free stuff, and leave. In November, I announced my plans but never really updated my status online or posted them for others to see. While I participated each year, I was mostly silent about it.
Part of me believes, I was in the majority. Lots of people talked about NaNo, but no one really TALKED about doing it—even more so, did we donate to this non-profit? No. I sure didn’t.
And this is why the organization failed. We all can say we were proud members of the community, but we didn’t donate. Not once. This is not about AI. This is not about grooming kids or taking advantage of safe spaces. This comes down to give and take. We took and never gave.
How can a company survive when they give resources which we take and use, yet we don’t donate to the cause?
NaNoWriMo believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.
While a lot of people don’t give two fucks about NaNo, it is a loss for the writing community. Yes, they had a shitload of bad press lately but they did a lot of good in their time. And because of that, they will be missed.
This is why it’s important to support indie writers. Don’t stop reading on KU because you hate Amazon. That is the livelihood of indie authors. Don’t stop subscribing to pages like this, who give away free stories in the hopes you will donate toward bigger and longer works. Writing may be free, but it takes a village to turn out publish-worthy books that are not AI-generated.
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