A few days ago the somewhat inevitable news that NaNoWriMo was going to go down was given and honestly, it's been a bit difficult to sort through the feelings that have come up in the wake of that. It's one thing to know that it exists still, but it's not what it was, but it's something else entirely to think of it being gone for good...
I spoke to friends and we discussed that the grieving process started for a lot of us way back in 2023, for some even longer ago than that, but this has something of a finality to it. Instead of waiting for someone to steer the ship back onto course, we have to accept that it's gone and it likely will never be seen again. When I didn't take part in anything resembling NaNoWriMo in 2024 I expected that it was unlikely I would ever visit my NaNo account again, but today I decided that there was still a reason to go back, and it was better to do it sooner rather than later rather than potentially miss the chance.
What I wanted to keep was the record of what I had written and when. I wanted to keep the records of things that I had tried, things I had written and the graphs that came with them, because there were some pretty amazing achievements in there.
Granted, I hope the memory of finishing in 5 days and smashing the Staples 'Easy' button, to make it say 'That was easy' in the middle of the cafe in a bookstore (I think it was a Waterstone's) and saying 'no, it f-ing wasn't', or the many crazy memories of the All Night Lock In, whether it was in The Big Green Bookstore or the different Scout sites we used later, or the awesome friends I made through NaNoWriMo, or that trip to San Fransisco...
But yes, I went back to screen grab some of the good memories, and maybe it was a way for me to say goodbye and accept that it's over. Maybe.
