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.
"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.
