Naked in the Snow

 

Skyeelgol

The rules are clear. No pillows, no napping, no jackets.

But it's snowing.

Yes, so?!

So, it's cold.

The root of the problem is that people are too squirmish; toughen up!

Toughen up, toughen up; my feet hurt, and besides, why no pillows?

Find your way to the castle.

And why no jackets?

Weapons, you could hide them.

And why no napping?

Because... all these questions.

Well, yes, you have a nice warm jacket; and the rules make no sense; the castle is in ruins.

OK, you can have a pillow.

You know what, get lost, you and your bloody rules.

100 Word Stories

Budget Airline

Tierra de Fuego

Low cost. This is what you get. A hole on the side of the plane through which two people were sucked out. Three more held on to their seats, one of them with a hole on his head instead. "Transfer the money or else", they said. The company chose the "or else" obviously. Now, they had to transfer a ton of money, but to the families of the deceased. One of the relatives laughed all the way to the bank. "Transfer the money or transfer the money. From low cost to premium, plus the inheritance, that's how you do business."

100 Word Stories

Place

Begin at the beginning and rush, rush, rush. In a hurry, in a hurry, always. Everything changes. Everything shifts. Everything ends. Then, you stop. And there's still nothing. You hoped there would be something. But the tick tock ticked tocked away, faintly. Where to? Tell me, where to? And no one cared... Your place is no more. You stopped. Your loss. Now, there's nothing you can do about it. And you're left with that hole you already had, because there was nothing there before and there is nothing there now. Hope? What is hope? Nothing. Yes, the joke's on you.

100 Word Stories

Track On!

The NaNoWriMo page offered a very useful feature. We could add our word count and visualize how well we were doing by using a bar or line graphic. If the squiggly line was not moving much, we had to push forward and work harder!

With NaNoWriMo gone, we, at the Virtual Writers, started using TrackBear. 

This page allows us to track our progress in words, chapters, pages, scenes, lines, or time. If we need to switch from words to time, we can do it.

We can set goals and dates, and see if we are keeping up, even if we are working on several projects at the same time.

It will help us track out writing habits.

We can keep up with our writer friends by using the Leaderboard feature .

There are a few other nifty features like adding a cover to your project, a description, and the phase (planning, outlining, editing, on hold, finished or abandoned).

And, as its creator states, "TrackBear is designed with privacy in mind and will always be free to use [bold in the original]. TrackBear isn't a social network, a chat platform, or AI-powered, and there is no premium tier or pay-to-play. There are no ads, no third-party tracking, and no data harvesting. It's just a place for you to track your writing."

Finally, we can import all our projects from the NaNoWriMo website (no timeframe was given, but NaNoWriMo stated that it will be shut down soon).

Notes: All images, except the last, were taken from the TrackBear's homepage. Also, I am not affiliated with TrackBear. I'm sharing this information because, after using this website for several months, I find it to be useful.

NaNoWriMo...

 

And it's the end...

NaNoWriMo did not survive the flood of scandals, disorganization and financial struggles.

On April 1 (yes, I know, what a day to send this out...), subscribers to their mailing list received the following (transcribed in full):


"To Our NaNoWriMo Community:

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.

Explaining how we got here is both simple and complex. The funding woes that have threatened so many nonprofits in recent years are an unextraordinary trend. Many beloved organizations announced their closure last year. Many more are fighting for their lives. Media coverage of financial crisis within the sector—especially among arts nonprofits—has been widespread.

Yet, there are ways in which NaNoWriMo is extraordinary—and reasons why we had hoped we could buck that trend. The sheer size of our community, its global reach and its longevity, held at impressive levels, even during a tumultuous year. There is no shortage of writers who want to participate in NaNoWriMo. Yet, building a community and being able to sustain it are two different matters. 2024 was a revelatory year.

In order to fully understand how we reached this decision, and why we view it as the only alternative, we encourage you to watch this video about the State of NaNoWriMo. The video also contains some important acknowledgments and information about the logistics of our next steps. Most importantly, the video shares real data and information that the organization has not discussed previously. The plot is thicker than you might think.

We recognize that the closure of NaNoWriMo represents a huge loss to the writing community, and that grief over this outcome will be exacerbated by the challenges of the past sixteen months. This is not the ending that anybody wanted or planned. And—believe us—if we could hit the delete button and rewrite this last chapter, we would. But we do have hope for the epilogue.

What’s next for NaNoWriMo, the indebted nonprofit, is much different from what's next for actual Wrimos. We hold no belief that people will stop writing 50,000 words in November (and April, and July) or stop seeking support for the journey they’re on. Many alternatives to NaNoWriMo popped up this year, and people did find each other. In so many ways, it’s easier than it was when NaNoWriMo began in 1999 to find your writing tribe online.

Our greatest hope at this moment is that you do two things: support arts nonprofits you love (they really, truly need you) and keep writing words. Your stories matter.

Thank you for all you have done for the organization, and especially for each other, over all these years.

Sincerely,

The NaNoWriMo Team



A Few Additional Notes:

We anticipate that some people might want to log on and capture information that is meaningful to them, like their lifetime word count or stats from previous seasons or challenges. We also anticipate that some folks on the Young Writers Program website may not have backed up work that they wrote directly into our system, and may wish to do so at this time. If there is something you feel you need to retrieve, you are welcome to try. However, our site tends to crash a lot when overrun with too much traffic (chronic technology underinvestment is mentioned in the video). We apologize for any inconvenience if the site gets crashy.

If you are a recurring donor, thank you for your ongoing support of the organization (truly). We have cancelled all recurring donations on our end in order to ensure that you will not be charged as we transition into our next phase.
If you want anything from the NaNoWriMo store, please don't delay. We will shut that down soon as well.

 
Finally, we have observed that, at times of change, many members of our community are in want of spaces to process these new developments, and that, historically, we have hosted many all-community online spaces. Unfortunately, we have very limited resources to reply individually to comments or to moderate our social spaces at this time. We will do our best but make no guarantees."

The first time I wrote a full novel was during NaNoWriMo back in 2013. Since then, I have participated every year either in the NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNoWriMo. I have written several other novels and experimented with genres I never thought I would even consider. NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo became the synthesis of the research, learning and writing done during the rest of the year.

After what happened, the Virtual Writers moved on and we started our own writing events, Moxie Madness, generously reported about at Inara Pey's post.

It is, nevertheless, with sadness that I see NaNoWriMo disappear. It was a great idea. It was a great event. The creative energy from people all over the world was unmatched. And it was an amazing way to just... write.

As many have said before, it is definitely the end of an era.

Server

Gehena Vampire Clan

 

"Arsenic? We apologize. The server is offline."The questions continued until the server was back online.

Everyone resumed clicking their buttons frantically.

Some even chanted "the server is online, the server is online".

What were the little tables for?

"Roleplay," was the answer.

She didn't know where the menu was, but the waiter whispered "no worries". He'd explain everything.

The needle. What? No.

But but... "the server is back online".

Now she understood the little joke. "Here, Happy Birthday, have fun".

She was a widow, a black widow. Go to the RP café and have some arsenic on our tab.

100 Word Stories

No Idea!

Missing Melody

 

What is that?

A map.

Of what?

No idea.

North Pole?

No.

South Pole?

No.

Then what?

No idea.

Speak louder, my hearing aid is not charged.

NO IDEA.

No need to shout.

You told me... Ok, never mind.

So, it's not the North Pole or the South Pole.

Nope.

What is it then?

I don't know, I forgot to bring my glasses.

Aviator's map?

No.

Well, when I look at it this way, it kind of looks like a squirrel.

A what?

A squirrel. Just squint and you'll see.

Short circuit alert. Later.

It's a squirrel, I tell ya!

100 Word Stories

Taradiddle

 

Missing Melody

It was official. He left her. How would she face the family? The friends? The people at the tennis club? So, she told everyone that he would be away on business.... for a year. That should be enough to find someone and not look like a total loser. And then she got his text: I loved you at your darkest. She was confused. Darkest? She always wore white because of that positive energy crap. And if he meant her insecurities, she had none. Note to self: buy horrid new tennis skirt model that everyone was now wearing. At your darkest...

100 Word Stories

Comments

 

Missing Melody

He wondered what that was. A pseudo kebab featuring the most unusual looking food? Upon inquiring about what exactly was being cooked, he realized that some strange items had indeed been stabbed and were merrily burning away. As far as he could see (no pun intended), there were eyes mixed with a few fingers and something that resembled a dragon wing, that is if there were dragons. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but he was hungry and he could just close his eyes. He did. Let's just say the following week was not the easiest week.

100 Word Stories

Teach

 

Missing Melody

She would always hold a book and ask the kids to "read" from it. On each page, nothing but a few smudges and a handful of lost letters. The kids would then come up with a story. She would write it down on the blackboard, making everyone cringe and giggle when the chalk squeaked. The story would be copied to a notebook which would find its way onto a bookshelf. The next day, the same old smudges, the same old lost letters would inspire a new story. She hoped the kids would remember this for the rest of their lives.

100 Word Stories