What Happens Now?

As NaNoWriMo23 comes to a close, I'm realising how weird it is that I've spent the month writing, but without recording it on the NaNo site and actually it was only when it was 'over' and I had finished the fifty thousand words that NaNo requires that I actually started writing the sequel I have been trying to write for a long time and it was probably the best thing I've tried to write for a long time. I thought it was going to be harder to let go of the whole of NaNo if that was what it came to, but what I have realised in the last few days has been that even though this has been the last fourteen years of my life, if it no longer fits it's okay to put it down and focus on the things which do. It's not like I'm resigning my typewriter to the scrap pile or trying to figure out being happy without writing (never works, or not for long anyway) or even like I'm giving up on something that puts on its boots only to kick them square up my butt to get me writing - metaphorically, of course.

Whilst saying goodbye to NaNoWriMo is not a certainty at the moment - it's going to depend on a few things - I definitely don't feel as distraught as I would have expected to and whilst that's strange, it is a very welcome thing. Although I did manage to let go of some things with NaNoWriMo what I will say is that this blog was typed during the mad dash before midnight which happens to have been my favourite part of NaNo each year and has been the sort of thing that was either the mad sprint to finish or the period where I tried to write enough to mirror what I had done on the first day (nailed it, just saying) and I have previously had a bottle of Prosecco in the house so that I could pop the cork and have a glass at midnight to celebrate it's over. I'm tempted to do that now, but at the same time I think I should leave it until the finish of the draft of the sequel. (Though I have a few bottles so there's nothing to stop me from having a glass tonight and then a glass from another bottle when the draft is finished. It would have to be different bottles because it's not going to be done in the next few days!)

Anyway, yes, NaNoWriMo is over and I am glad that the pressure is off of the whole thing, but at the same time, I can't wait for a conclusion to the whole thing to happen. The whole thing really does feel like a sword of Damacles over the head of the organisation, the community, and the whole damn thing. I hate it because it doesn't feel real and it doesn't feel like something that ever should have happened (obviously) and, in the strange way that NaNoWriMo counts things, we've not even quite reached 25 years for the organisation. If all we ever get to be is an organisation who had an amazing idea and wanted to bring together writers young and old, I hope the legacy looks like what we wanted it to, but if it doesn't, I hope that those of us who remember the best parts of it are able to look back and remember the best of it fondly. I know there are a lot of things that I will remember fondly, particularly getting to meet Chris Baty and discussing everything from the start of NaNoWriMo to his trip to Brighton and London, the trip to San Francisco and getting to meet some of the other Over Achievers in person and so many Municipal Liaisons, and most especially the train trip. And only in part because of getting to cuddle a puppy husky who was only about six weeks old and the most gorgeous little thing I had ever seen (to date, because I hadn't met Chai then.) And of course there will always be the write ins at KRO in Manchester before I left, my first year at university when the Manchester group called me and shouted 'We love you, Charlie' down the phone when my heart was breaking from missing home so much and I couldn't get the train back to Manchester to spend all of my time with them or to attend all of the events that the region were throwing. There were all of those All Night Lock Ins - the good, the bad and the online - train trips to Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton and then also the NaNoRillas where we explored more of London that some of us ever did alone. These memories might end up being all that is left, but if they are, then I guess it is a pretty great legacy. 

I guess the question is then, if I wrote this the night of the 30th November into 1st December, why has it taken me until now to post, because clearly I'm not doing what I was doing at the end of October where I was writing a few blogs in one day and scheduling them to go up one per day? Well, the answer is because a few things have still been hitting the fan with NaNoWriMo that are making me question whether what I have already done to step back are enough or whether I need to follow suit from what a few people (many of whom are former MLs or other long time supporters of the organisation) have already made the decision to do and make the decision to delete my account entirely. One of the things that makes me really reluctant to do that is that I don't want to lose the data and I have a really bad history with losing data, particularly when it is emotionally valuable to me. I also can't imagine getting to November next year and NOT going through all of my NaNoWriMo rituals and spending at least the first few days of the month seeing what taking things to the extremes can do (trying to write 50K in the least time possible is definitely taking things to the extremes) and taking it as an opportunity - if I need it - to recommit myself to writing when I've fallen off of the wagon a bit. Even if that's not done sitting under the NaNo banner, which this year wasn't really, it's always going to be connected to NaNo because that's where it comes from and the history is important to me. 

Decisions haven't been made yet by the board, or at least not announced yet, and I guess that I am still hoping that the right decisions are made that mean that the ship doesn't sink and we can keep NaNoWriMo or at least have a new and improved version as close to the original as humanly possible. I don't want to lose the good parts of what we have in NaNoWriMo, and I'm holding out hope that it can be saved, but maybe that is being unrealistically optimistic, and I just need to accept that it's time to walk away from any association with it. At the moment, I'm still sitting on the fence getting a splintery ass rather than making a decision one way or the other.

Since I wrote all of the above there has been a little bit more from the board, but it's not really been decisions other than bringing in a consultant... A few people have made the really big decision to leave, and honestly, I can't blame them, and I think it's going to continue to feel like a sinking ship until there is a good, solid outcome - like a change of personnel or really solid consequences for the things that happened and a lot of changes in certain areas that have been highlighted a number of times, or the majority of the community leaves, whether we have a new home or not.