Mini Rant and No More NaNo
Given the shitshow that NaNoWriMo has devolved into, I’m not going to give them my custom anymore. After I saw they’d trademarked almost everything to do with “National Novel Writing Month,” did a perusal of what financials I could find, then looked up a few other addresses and people, I’m honestly shocked it didn’t implode sooner. I never cared enough to go spelunking before, but hot damn if they haven’t locked down pretty much everything having to do with NaNoWriMo, legally speaking.
In theory, they could go after anyone and everyone using some form of “NaNoWriMo” for infringement—if they could pay the lawyers, which, given the compensation listed for what passes as their C-suite and the fact they’re incorporated in California, I’d doubt. As with a majority of “nonprofits,” the upper echelons clear quite a pretty penny—for anyone living anywhere but the Left Coast, anyway. Their HQ is in Berkley, where monthly rent is 2K+ for a matchbox-sized apartment with half the square footage of their street-facing office (3354 Adeline Street, according to the last updated trademark paperwork I found).
All in all, I’m morbidly curious as to what their tax filings for this fiscal year will look like, since most of their major fundraising was done before shit hit the fan in 2023. The “diversity hire” drama is one thing, but the trawling pedos in the youth forums (allegedly) has the ability to bring down federal hammers if any of the victims take them to court. I parsed through all that massively understated and overlooked shit and I was done.
What to do, what to do…
Keep writing, of course. Nobody needs a NaNoWriMo trademark to actually write shit. Cranking out a novel draft in 2-3 weeks has proven a fruitful and fun endeavor over the years. I have two series starters close to going gold and was able to figure out that last year’s idea was just meh and required more cooking.
I’m going to experiment with pacemaker.press. Graphs are fun when you’re not making them to explain to the corporate overlords why they done fucked up spending a shit-ton of money believing line would always go up.
(Don’t ask.)
Anyway, this year’s project is The Bonds of Blood, and I only have the story plotted out to just before the climax. How long will it be? Who knows.
GLHF to anyone going for a 50k story in November, and if you’re giving the corpos at NaNoWriMo a second (or third or fourth or fifth) chance, you’re a more forgiving human than I.
Or just insane.
Be excellent to each other!