Writeathon

You may or may not have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It’s a thing set up whereby people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in November. It works out to approximately 1666.67 words per day. Quite a lot. It began in 1999, with 21 participants and six winners (a winner being someone who gets to 50,000 words in the 30 days). Last year over 100,000 began, and close to 15,000 finished. You can see there’s a pretty high attrition rate.

This year, I’m going to do it. And you can help me by pledging to donate some money to a worthy cause if I do. The cause is Sydney’s Wayside Chapel, who provide, among other things, food, clothing, healthcare and welfare for people living on and around the streets of Sydney. A friend does some work with them, and so I thought I might be able to help out a little bit too.

If I fail to make the 50,000 words, (and lets face it, on last year’s evidence there’s an 85% chance of that), you don’t have to donate a cent. Instead, I’ll donate whatever you have pledged. So the Wayside Chapel won’t miss out either way.

So there are two good reasons to be involved: get me to write a novel, and more importantly give Sydney’s homeless a helping hand. Donating like this is much better than giving $2 to the guy begging at the train station. All he’s likely to spend it on is getting his next fix.

If you’re not in Australia, it would probably be impractical to be involved directly. If you wanted to, you could pledge to donate something to a local charity wherever you are, perhaps one involved in providing similar services.

So are you in? How much for? Just $20 would provide meals for 15 people, or clothing for five. If you’d prefer not to donate via the comments page, email me.