Dear friends,
I just found out about the scandals around National Novel Writing Month – about the organization not protecting its minor users’ enough and there being grooming going on.
Wow. I had no idea. I just hopped onto the forums for the first time since November 2022 and found out.
I wanted to apologize to all of my readers for my absolute ignorance and my continuing to promote NaNoWriMo in my recent posts, and on my sidebar banners. I am horrified to discover that horrible things were happening in the background of NaNoWriMo forums, and moderators were unaware or even part of it. Especially one particular NaNoWriMo moderator, apparently. The Board has frozen all the forums and has hired a specialist to revamp the forums, the policies etc. so that children and all future NaNoWriMo users are protected. Some are swearing off NaNo altogether, regardless.
I am still reeling from this news and I’ll be taking down my banners, etc. I pray that the souls that were hurt from their experience on the NaNoWriMo forums are now protected and that they can heal from whatever happened.
If you still want to discuss writing projects or try to hit the 50k/month mark, more power to you! No need for the NaNo website to do so.
Until next time,
Chaitanya
Typing Madly 