Y'all, I never thought I would have to reverse engines so hard. 

I have loved NaNoWriMo for many years. It connected me to so many writerly friends, who in turn have helped my writing so much. The cabin conversations, the word wars, all of that are such fond memories for me. For many years, I promoted NaNo among my blogging circles. I helped host two communities on there and joined a third. NaNo was....a big part of my writing life. 

But now, I am quitting it forever. 

One day about a year or two ago, I had noticed that NaNo had quietly sneaked in a "Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity" page. I knew this to be the leftist equivalent of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity", so I knew trouble was afoot. I remember talking to friends about it, and trying to find an alternative, but nothing came of it. So I decided to leave it alone. 

Then a few months after that, I got an email from NaNo decrying an incident concerning some Asian women that had been splashing all over the news. It was all political talking points, no allusion to the creative arts. It was then that I decided to unsubscribe from NaNo's email list. 

At this point, I had distanced myself from NaNo events. I had a good excuse - grad school is very intense and doesn't allow for much writing. I was used to skipping NaNo itself, but this when I started to skip Camp NaNo too. 

Fast forward to today (or actually yesterday, by the time you read this). 

I was on Instagram and this story pops up: #boycottnanowrimo

It turned out, it was from my friend Stefanie Lozinski. She related that she had received an email from NaNoWriMo with the following subject line: "Access to healthcare - like access to creativity - is a fundamental right". The contents had been enough to send her own NaNo account down the drain.

I felt as if the boom was lowered at last.  

Once it started making it's way around the 'Gram, another pro-life friend Victoria Lynn shared the actual email. 

That's when I learned for the first time that NaNo had set up a donation fund....to help fund abortions. 

As an unapologetically pro-life Catholic who has gone to the March for Life and volunteered at pregnancy centers....I cannot, in good conscience, support an organization that so blatantly wishes to kill it's own future writers. 

I hate to be this blatantly political. Writing novels shouldn't be a political concern. But NaNoWriMo drew their line in the sand. 

I beg you, my fellow writers, please delete your NaNo accounts. Communities can be rebuilt on other platforms. Your word counts can be tracked elsewhere.

And please, do not donate to NaNoWriMo, nor encourage others to do so. 

As of about an hour ago, RebellingCatherine is officially off the NaNo website. All the links to NaNo on my website, my bio links, and my computer are gone. Any links to NaNo stuff in my posts will be broken. 

As for the Siena Society, I hope to continue that through Google Chat/Hangouts. So if you're not on that chat, and you'd like to be, please let me know! 

And speaking of chat...I have a question to ask of you all. 

Would you be interested in a sort of Discord-like place where we can have our own NaNo style challenges? I have some ideas kicking around and I'd like to see what you guys think! 

Catherine