Clarion Write-a-thon! (I am doing this thing)
I've never been part of a Clarion workshop, even when Clarion South was a Thing in Australia, but have always been faintly in awe of those people who do it. Six weeks of writing, critiquing and generally living and breathing writerliness, tutored by amazing professionals, and kicking your skills up as many notches as you can in what must be simultaneously a very short period of time and the longest weeks of your life.
This year, I'm playing along with the Clarion Write-a-thon. My Nancy Napoleon novel has not exactly stalled, but after working on it for several months I haven't been able to hit that momentum point when the writing gets fast and awesome and, you know, done. So when I heard about this over at Rachel Swirsky's blog, I thought it could be my answer, as well as a chance to fundraise for a good cause.
My goal is to write 5,000 words a week for the six weeks of the workshop, starting this Sunday the 19th June and running through to the 29th July. Really, this is the kind of writing output I want to get back to being able to do as a matter of course, but I've been scrabbling to get back my writing mojo since I had baby Jem. If you're interested in setting your own writing goal and joining up with the Write-a-Thon, you can still do so until this Saturday 18th June. You'll be in some great company!
It's not just about writing, though, it's also about fundraising, and of course providing me with some further incentive to reach my goals. So if you'd like to sponsor me in my endeavour, please do! Check out my Write-a-Thon page for how to sponsor me by Paypal – and let me know that you have, as I'm not sure if I get notified otherwise, and I am totally relying on guilt as an incentive to spur me on. The money all goes towards Clarion West, a very worthy institution, to help more writers reach their potential.
Fury currently stands at 20,000 words (or it will hit that number sometime in the next hour or so as soon as I stop blogging & get on with finishing my chapter) and my plan for the Write-a-thon is to get to 50,000 by the end of the six weeks. Wish me luck!
