Howdy folks, how are we all doing this morning?

This is going to be a bit of an erratic post, so bare with me as I cover a couple of topics that are on my mind at the moment.

Firstly I’ll give you a little writing update. I’m prioritising Penal Earth 2 and getting this draft done. I’ve also started work on something that I think will be a short story series but it’s still in the early days. I like the idea of having it as a series as I can work on this when I have less time to focus. I’ve found if I can sit down for at least an hour at my desk then I think what I’m producing is better quality and less likely to need fixing later. With the short story series I’ve started, let’s call it Hauler, its all early drafts so I can be a little more fast and loose with what I’m doing. With things like Penal Earth 2 and War Child I need to be able to focus in on them and think about the bigger picture. This does mean I need to sit my arse down at my desk more often. Days off like to day, that’s quite easy. When I have work its been proving much more difficult. I normally finish work and the last thing I have the energy for is writing. I need to adjust my mindset and figure out how to get my butt in the chair more.

With that in mind I’ve set myself a goal of ten hours writing for this month. That shouldn’t be too difficult, but I didn’t do that much last month so let’s not count our chickens just yet.

I just want to talk about Linkin Park quickly, they’ve announced a new album, tour, and singer, taking the place of Chester Bennington who took his own life in 2017 I think it was. If you’re familiar with their music then you know what a talent Chester was, and a lot of people will be pissed at not only another person singing his iconic lines but a woman at that. Does it matter though? We don’t know what Chester would’ve wanted. By all accounts Linkin Park were an incredibly close knit band, I’ve heard them refer to themselves as brothers in interviews. So I think they know what Chester would have wanted. I trust the band and I look forward to seeing where they go from here.

Now, onto something I really don’t want to deal with but I’m going to as a lot of what I’ve talked about and championed has been this: NaNoWriMo. Urgh. They have come back to the attention of writers because they’ve come out in support of AI to create art. Now I am very anti-AI when it comes to making art, especially as many AIs have been programmed using peoples Intellectual Property without their permission. I’m not going to get into exactly what their statement about it was because, urgh. yeah. Just urgh.

I stepped down as an ML (Municipal Liaison) earlier this year, and just after the people they have running the shitshow at that time came out with a new MLs contract which basically made them liable for anything that happened in their regional forums. (I haven’t read all of these details so if I am wrong with the odd bit here and there I apologise). As well as having to hand over some quite personal information for background checks to a company that has a not very confidence inspiring history with handling peoples personal information.

There was also the manner that the person who seemed to be in charge of this process was talking to the MLs. It felt like this person was in over their head, believed in their way or the highway, and treated MLs, some of whom had been doing the job for many years, like children. It was condescending, disrespectful and just fucking embarrassing.

Something I’ve left out to this point is the reason much of this was happening was there was allegations of growing in the junior writers program forums. Which felt a little like it was swept under the carpet until someone got in touch with NaNoWriMo board members. After that there was a lot of radio silence, bizarre statements from the board that didn’t really say anything of weight and I can’t speak for others but as an ML I felt like I was being asked to act like nothing had happened. Add into that I was dumped around the same time, which is why much of what was happening with NaNo was a blur.

I know a lot of MLs have stood down, I’m not even sure if my region has any left, and I think this November’s NaNo has the potential to be a disaster.

As someone who loved NaNoWriMo this has all broken my heart. I have written amazing words, met amazing people who have become friends all due to NaNoWriMo. I’ve loved the community it had, the passion it inspired and the fact that it was there just to write. The idea was write and then edit later, but do it while there was tend of thousands, I think even hundreds of thousands at its height, all doing the same thing. Sitting at a coffee shop with a dozen other writers all manically writing for twenty minutes, having a ten minute break then another twenty minute sprint is so much fun to do. I’m hoping the region can recover away from the NaNoWriMo banner, all external groups had to be shut down or name changed so you had to go to the NaNo Website, and I know some are trying hard to build it back up.

I remember talking to a dear friend about NaNoWriMo a few years ago. I was frustrated with the language in some of the communications MLs were getting and felt that what had been the inspiration of NaNoWriMo had been forgotten. It was feeling like it was a corporation. The push for donations seemed to get more prominent each year. Some of the partners who sponsored NaNo were a little suspect, and the writing seemed to be an unfortunate hindrance to that.

Something that amazes me now is that people are more shocked and outraged about the AI thing than the FUCKING GROOMING!!!!!! I should of released my frustrations with NaNoWriMo before now. Just how they handled the grooming things is shocking, but I’ve had a lot I’ve been struggling with and now I’m only just coming out of it. I probably won’t talk much more about this from here on. Simply because I’m not involved in NaNoWriMo at all now. I’ve deactivated my account, removed bookmarks and am removing their social media pages from my lists. I’ve even taken down my NaNo posters.

If you want to do NaNoWriMo this November, go for it! They might have got their arses in gear since then. But right now, for me, I’m done with it. Which hurts but it feels like the people behind the scenes there don’t care about anything except making money. Fuck that.

I suppose that should have been a post on its own, but hey ho. Its written now and I don’t really want to give it any more of my brain power.

On a positive note, I’m getting some help for my mental health. I’ve had an increase in my medication and am on a webinar course Cognitive Behavioural Therapy thing at the moment. Although not one on one I enjoyed the first one a lot, and think this could be very good for me. The meds increase has helped but I think the CBT is going to be very fruitful.

Right, that’s enough of me venting. I’m off to work on Penal Earth 2 for a couple of hours.

Have a super weekend folks!