Clarion Write-A-Thon 2015: Why Am I Doing This, Anyway?

The sixth annual Clarion Write-A-Thon is underway! I’ve already explained just what the heck the Write-A-Thon is in Friday’s entry, so I thought I would take a little bit of time to explain just why I’m doing this anyway.

I’m not a rabbit who likes to pass the hat around and ask for things. I grew up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the long weekends I’ve spent trying to get people to read our literature and sign up for bible studies really ground whatever fundraising drive I’ve had out of me. Asking friends, acquaintances and strangers for money is one of my least-favorite things, so I wouldn’t do it for just any old thing.

FUNDRAISING
The Clarion Workshop is an amazing experience; when Ryan went last year I got to hang out with the class of 2014 for a night, and they’re an amazing group of people. They came from all over the world to spend six weeks with each other and their instructors, and most of them weren’t well off enough that leaving their day jobs for six weeks and sinking thousands of dollars into a workshop didn’t come with a tremendous amount of sacrifice. But they believed in their writing enough to make it.

There are scholarships, of course, but in order to offer them Clarion has to rely on donations from folks who want to support it. The Write-A-Thon is a great way to do that — it provides writers who hope to one day get into the workshop (this guy!) with an incentive to push themselves towards a lofty goal for a good cause. It brings visibility to the work that’s being done there, and allows me to help in some small way by drawing donations to their scholarship and teacher’s fees.

I’m hoping that I can raise $500 this year for the Workshop. The top fundraisers will have a work of theirs critiqued by either a teacher (top three) or alumnus (top ten). It would mean an enormous amount to, say, have the story I’m writing for Defying Apocalypse critiqued before I sent it off. A donation from you, dear reader, could help make that happen!

WRITING
The big thing about the Write-A-Thon is the opportunity to write. There are so many things going on in all of our lives, and sometimes the demands of the day make it impossible for us to follow things that we want to do. When you have to work and run errands and be with the people you love and wash the dishes and do the laundry and cook dinner, it’s so easy for something as nebulous as writing to fall by the wayside.

For the next six weeks, I want to remove the distractions and excuses from my life. I want to dedicate myself to my writing the way the 2015 class at Clarion have done — well, almost. This is my chance to get just a taste of what it is to be a Clarionaut, to put myself into a pressure cooker and produce. In order to keep up with my word count, there isn’t much chance for me to second guess myself, give in to doubt or fatigue. If I’m going to be a writer, I’m going to need to write. Every day. A lot.

And unlike other events like NaNoWriMo (not to knock that fine, fine crucible) I get to do this for a cause I believe in. It also pretty much forces me to talk about myself, which is something that I don’t like to do for a number of different reasons. Part of being a successful writer is self-promotion, in its way. I prefer to think that you’re so excited about the stories you’re telling that you can’t help but talk about them. I’m hoping that this immersive experience will re-awaken that passion within me, that I’ll be so excited about my stories it will overcome my natural aversion to talking about them — and by extension, myself.

So, in summary — this is a cause I really believe in. An international group of students who might not be able to afford to have this experience might just get to go because of the money we raise here. I get to immerse myself in the writer’s life for six weeks, clearing aside all distractions and personal hang-ups to push forward, engage with my creativity and be an advocate for not only my own work but this awesome workshop. That’s why I’m doing the Clarion Write-A-Thon this year, and that’s why I’ll be asking all of you to make a donation through my writer’s page.

If you’re interested in helping me out, go here: http://clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php?writerid=599479

I’ll be sure to post updates on my projects here on the blog and on my writer’s profile!