Skip to main content

Ten Things I'd Change About NaNoWriMo

Since this is my fifth year (not in a row) that I've participated in National Novel Writing Month, I thought I'd put together a list of:

Ten Things I'd Change About NaNoWriMo

A Return to Sanity by Getting Rid of the Change: I'd ditch the new website and go back to the old one. This new piece of crap website is not half as useful or fun, it's constantly glitching, and the Twitter-style messaging is simply pissing me off. People in the forums are seriously discussing starting their own site, and I'm with them. So: go back to what worked, and don't mess with it again.

Ban Cheaters: Writing 50K in 30 days is hard freaking work, but you should be able to prove you did it. If you're caught cheating at NaNoWriMo by any means (and by anyone, even your mom), then you should be exposed and banned from participating. For life. Also, I personally think you should be publicly stripped and flogged by a writer who plowed through the thirty days and never cheated once. But I'll settle for lifetime banning.

Create Buddy Opt-Outs: Some years (like this one) I have time to be a buddy. Some years I don't. I'd like the option to turn off buddy requests for the don't years. This would also be useful to users who never want to have buddies.

Ditch the Laurel Thing: Seeing that yellow flower and purple leaves on my user icon is really getting on my nerves.

Ditto on the Donation Halo: I donate anonymously for a reason. I don't need the damn halo.

Make Pep-Talks into Tool-Talks: All I see is a lot of non-specific literary hooha being spouted by the same. They're all starting to sound identical, too. Why not offer some talks by working writers who share their techniques and tricks? You know, information that is actually useful to a writer? And while I'm on that subject --

Quit Being Such a Magnet for Literati: These literary hoohas think NaNoWriMo is a joke anyway.

Screen -- REALLY Screen -- Offers by Writing-Related Product Businesses: There used to be one or two of these. This year there are sixteen, and most are crap that just suck money out of the fledglings. Someone needs to seriously screen these jokers.

Stop SPAMming Users for Donations: I donate every year whether I participate or not. I also buy the t-shirts for the years I participate. Most hardcore NaNoWriMo'ers who are able to do the same. So once we have, quit e-mailing and begging us for more money.

Take it Back to When it Was About Writing: Remember when NaNoWriMo was a subversive movement by hardcore writers who didn't give a hoot about what anyone thought of them writing a novel in thirty days? Yeah. Let's go back to that.

What would you change about NaNoWriMo? Tell me in comments.

Labels:

Comments

nightsmusic said…
Well, I don't really spend any time on the forums because there's not really anything that interests me in the questions and posts. Some questions are serious, but most, I think, could be answered in a minute if people would just Google it. I'd also put a link back to Nano somewhere on every forum page. It's ridiculous that you can't get back to the main site from the forum page.

You're right in that the main site is terribly glitchy. I'm showing no buddies, you need to go search for some and yet, I have a buddy. I think in some ways, it's just gotten way to commercial. I liked it better oh...five or six years ago. It was fun then. Now, it's donate this and buy that and...I dunno. Just not the same as it was.
November 9, 2019 at 1:12 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...
1 comment
Read more