“Nah No Drama” | The Future of Writing Challenges
Clearly, it has been a minute since I posted a blog update. “Melody’s Happenings,” have been happening just enough to pull me away from blogging as well as most other forms of social updating, which has been good! I have been living my life and growing astronomically in the last two years. As one could easily discern, I am not the only one undergoing major shifts and changes. The writing community at large has been bringing issues to my attention regarding National Novel Writing Month, and the NaNoWriMo platform that is introducing even more adjustments to how I’ll be showing up moving forward.
Last Year, while I attempted and failed to fully participate in the event, I was disconnected enough to have missed the major issues as they were going on which have only been projected tenfold by their recent statements regarding the use of AI in what is literally meant to be a human productivity and community building tool. I along with many other writers on the internet have spent a good portion of our time supporting this organization and at times thriving because of it. I for one can owe the only real successes I have had thus far to them having won three years out of my twelve years of participating. One was the first draft of a novel I had ever fully completed; another was a re-write of that exact same novel; the final, was just me writing to prove that I could still do it even if it amounted to nothing more than a collection of words.
In light of the AI controversy and more damning, the child endangerment accusations, I and many more writers will not be participating in the event this year, nor do we plan to promote the organization moving forward.
I am incredibly grateful thought that this does not mean an end to writing challenges or the collapse of my entire virtual writing community altogether. Sarra Cannon of Heart Breathings and her husband have announced that they have a new system in the works to go along with the Heart Breathings Writing Community that will allow us to be challenged and track our progress while building connections without being distracting or disheartening as NaNoWriMo has unfortunately become. I will absolutely be keeping an eye on this as it develops and am overjoyed that she of all people has decided to offer such a platform.
I will also be developing new methods of my own for tracking and motivating myself to produce content of various forms since no matter how long I put it off I can’t shake the feeling that this is absolutely something that I am meant to make work. I believe it is just a matter of time and development and already things have been falling into ease more than ever before, even in more desperate times.
If you’re interested in following my journey, feel free to check back here for updates, sign up for my mailing list, and follow me on social media as you please though I will likely be most active here, on my own platform.
Thank you for your support and I hope we see more of each other soon!
Best Wishes,
Melody LeeMarie (M_LM)
