The End of NaNoWriMo

I have a plan, a goal. That much hasn’t changed. But I didn’t wake up this morning ready to write. In fact, it is afternoon, and I’m still struggling to open my WIP documents. This is despite my phenomenal writing sprints yesterday and my hope that I could repeat that writing success today.

So, what changed?

I lost another community. I discovered that the NaNoWriMo organization had actively covered up instances of grooming, bullying, and pedophilia. Most recently, community members contacted the organizers, demanding they remove an offending moderator and contact the FBI. Instead, the moderator was removed only from the group who complained. They were allowed to remain in the org and in contact with minors. The organization did not contact the FBI; when the whistleblowers realized it, they did it themselves.

Like many who enjoyed participating in NaNoWriMo every year, I decided this was an uncrossable line. Any organization that refuses to report and remove pedophiles and their activity deserves to be shut down. I contacted my writing buddies to let them know why I was leaving, and then I deleted my account.

My participation in NaNoWriMo is over.

I didn’t expect it to hit me as hard as it has. I’m pretty open about the fact that I’m an introvert. It’s a family joke that I could go weeks without leaving the house, so I don’t think of myself as a huge fan of communities. I tend to lurk on the fringes. I have my reasons, of course. This isn’t the first community I’ve lost.

I lost my church community years ago, but that came gradually as individual friends and colleagues were stripped away until I was one of the few left, waiting for my opportunity to get out as well. The pain of losing people I’d loved and trusted was stretched out over time, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. Eventually, it dimmed to loneliness. When the toxicity of the situation could no longer be ignored, and I was finally freed from the organization, it was easy to walk away. Any trust I’d had in that community was already gone.

Yesterday’s community loss came fast and without warning. It wasn’t as important to me as my church had been. However, it still hurts to know that an organization designed to help writers of every age refused to police its own moderators—even when presented with evidence that exposed illegal activity. Members begged for transparency and cooperation with the FBI and were ignored. Now, members are spreading the news, deleting their accounts, and warning parents to immediately remove their children from the Young Writer’s Program. It is the end of NaNoWriMo, another community lost to abusers and those who would cover for them.

Ironically, I joined the NaNoWriMo community, writing about spiritual abuse and its long-lasting effects. I was inspired in part by my church leadership, who were more interested in making a convicted pedophile and his family comfortable than in protecting the hundreds of children and teens who were on the church and school campus every week. The excuse was made that since he’d entered a plea deal and was not on any list, there was nothing legal that could be done, and since he wanted to serve, he should be allowed—no matter who was uncomfortable with his presence.

I felt silenced, so I wrote. The Rose Collection grew from my frustration.

Each novel confronts spiritual abuse and its many abusive offshoots: sexual, physical, economic, and emotional. I started many rough drafts as NaNoWriMo projects, including my most recent novel, The Art of Persisting.

I’ll continue to write because I think confronting abuse is essential. More writers are joining the fight. The subject matter that Christian publishers and agents refused to even look at three years ago is now a part of the indie mainstream. The louder we are, the more we expose abusive behavior — and make it easily recognizable — the better. NaNoWriMo is over, but we are not.