Clarion West Write-a-thon!

I sure wish a little bird had told me such a thing as the Clarion West Workshop existed when I was devoutly pursuing my English major in college. Now that I've returned to writing and embraced genre I would love to go, but I don't think the hubs, the girls, the dog, the chickens or the guppies would put up with me disappearing for six weeks to bask in writerly whatnot.

No matter, because they each year they host a Write-a-thon for the duration of the workshop. This year I'm going to participate and you can too!

There's a lot to like about this Write-a-thon:

It's longer than National Novel Writing Month, six weeks instead of four, and it's in the summer so it doesn't intersect with any major holidays (Thanksgiving, I'm looking at you).

Participants are tasked with setting their own goals. I wanted to challenge myself by just notching things up one tick. As I've blogged about before. I'm all about setting goals I can accomplish. Here's what I wrote:

I'm looking to step up my productivity by writing more consistently. I am committing to writing 1,000 words a day -everyday- throughout the write-a-thon. Also, since I consider revising writing, it counts - but in the case of revising I would like to revise 2,000 words or 8 pages/day. So, one or the other or some combination of the two every day. I hope over the course of the write-a-thon to finish the two novelettes I have in progress and write at least two new stories.

It's not just a Write-a-thon, it's a Write-a-long. The other participants include many published and established authors! Check out their pages here, and sign up for a chance to rub virtual shoulders with some great writers.

It's for a good cause: nurturing of great new genre writers, so that we'll have more fantastic literature to read in the not-so-distant future! For the fundraising side of it, if you donate on my Clarion West Write-a-thon page, I will write a flash fiction story with your name (or a name of your choosing) as the title character.

So, what are you waiting for? Check out their Write-a-thon page and get yourself signed up for the fun!

You can check out my author page here.