Kickoff 2024 was a great success — attendees received goodie bags, ate snacks, and made animals out of pipe cleaners to stimulate some creativity. We’re ready for our inaugural “That November Thing” season to debut in just a few short days.

From a brand perspective, we still don’t have an official logo or tagline — that’s holding up the merch plans we’ll discuss, below — but we have renamed our program directors to be “Weasel Herders.”

Here’s what you need to know as we formally begin TNT on October 15:

• Fantasy Quest is back! The method of accumulating points is similar to last year. However, participants no longer need to fill out a survey form to submit their content. Instead, it’ll be based on our community word tracker and some emails to the Weasel Herders. Plus, the allocation of bonus points is public, so there’s transparency in how the Weasel Herders bestow additional riches. Check out the overview document for specific details. The last two weeks of October can be writing, and the first two weeks of December can be writing. (Or prep, or editing.) But for the purpose of Fantasy Quest, we’re only counting words in the challenge that accumulate over the month of November, using a 50,000-word par for the month.
• TrackBear. We’re using TrackBear for our community challenge metrics. This online software is free. Join our leaderboard by using the invite code bb0b947d-7259-4349-aea0-f921f201c3e8 and recognize that this platform offers the tracker NaNoWriMo HQ should have given to us years ago.
• Discord Reset. We reset Discord; when you log in, you’ll need to re-confirm that you agree to our terms and conditions and that you’ve read our Code of Conduct. We again have three roles (news, writing, social) so you can tailor your engagement however you like. This year, we’ve added a few new channels for event planning and for Fantasy Quest. We’ve also added a Spicy Chat channel that’s adult-themed. To gain access to Spicy Chat, please reach out to a Weasel Herder; you cannot self-select into this role. Also, we’ve deleted the Pillow Fort. Going forward, all content on the server must be related to either writing or (in a meta sense) to our region. No politics, religion, sports, or mental-health conversations.
• The Fall Writers’ Conference. This workshop occurs next Saturday (October 19) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Emphasis is on creativity within anxious authors. This conference is donation-only; RSVP required through Eventbrite.
• Events Calendar. In the next day or so, we’ll have all of the events (major activities, write-ins, and related stuff) accessible through the Events calendar on the website. That calendar is the source of truth for happenings in our community.
• Day of Knockout Noveling. DOKN will take place on Saturday, Nov. 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Jason’s Books & Coffee. Come and go as you like; bring a dish to pass, if you wish. It’s just socializing and word wars — oh, and our community’s silent auction to raise funds for WMAA. Doors open no earlier than 9:50 a.m.
• Fundraising. We do not charge for any WMAA activity. However, we do incur various costs to put on TNT. We are grateful for any donations the community is willing to make to keep this program sustainable through the long run. All donations to WMAA go 100 percent to the program, and we’ll provide a full accounting of costs and revenue at the end of December. To donate, visit the donation page at Lakeshore Literary Foundation and on the Amount screen, change the drop-down from “General Fund” to “West Michigan Author Alliance.” LLF is a 501c3 public charity.
• Flyer, Survey, & Merch. We’ll release our annual beginning-of-season survey in the next few days. A flyer and merchandise will soon follow — we just need to figure out logo-and-tagline stuff, first. 🙂 We use CustomCat (from Detroit!) for merchandise printing and order fulfillment; a percentage of each merch order benefits WMAA. We’ll have a lot of things for you, soon. But that logo — ugh.

We’ll send you another note in a week.

Until then, we hope you have a wonderful second half of October and a fruitful prep for this year’s TNT season.