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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.

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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
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