#Scrivathon16

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For those who haven’t heard, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is fast approaching. From midnight November 1st to midnight November 30th, participants try to write an entire novel (or at least 50,000 words’ worth). This year, I’m joining with other writers to set aside a 24 hour window for a word sprint—trying to write as fast and as hard as I can to get a rough draft of my new novel project.

As entertaining and exhausting as this sounds, Team Scrivathon would like to make this exercise about something larger than our writing, and use the sprint to raise money for charity. This year, we’ve selected Syria Relief, a UK-based humanitarian organization providing assistance on the ground in Syria.

How can you help? If you’re a writer planning to try NaNoWriMo this year, check out this post by the amazing A.Y. Chao on how to join Team Scrivathon and set up your own donation page.

If you’re a reader, book lover, or just want to do what you can to help, go to my donation page here. You can donate a set amount, or pledge to donate per word to spur me on to type faster during my word sprint!

How much can I write in 24 hours? Good question. Most writers are used to thinking in terms of word count, rather than pages. Depending on the type of book, one page could have a very different number of words than another. As a rough estimate, though, most paperback books have about 250 words a page. So to win NaNoWriMo, I need to write about 200 pages in a month—a short novel. That means I have to churn out an average of 1700 words a day, or a little less than 7 pages of (hopefully) deathless prose. Can I write 3,000 words, 5,000 or maybe even 10,000 in one twenty-four hour sprint? Maybe, with lots of coffee!

So, to recap:

Go to my donation page, sponsor me, and donate to Syria Relief.

Click on the genie lamp below to sign up for updates, including plans for prizes to be given away to lucky donors!