It’s that time of year again! This year, the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon runs from June 22 to August 2. Yesterday was the first day, and although I was generally distracted by BRIGHT SUNLIGHT, I completed 2 of my 150 hours of butt-in-chair time. I also completed my first SUPER SECRET blog post. 🙂

If you don’t know what the Write-a-Thon is, you can check out the main page here: http://clarionwriteathon.org/

My profile is here: http://clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php?writerid=457231

Short version is that I’m doing the Write-a-Thon to raise money for the Clarion UCSD workshop, which I attended in 2008. The workshop is a nonprofit, and it depends on donations to keep costs down for the students (and it’s already PLENTY expensive). Clarion is a six-week, intense science fiction/fantasy short story workshop. I had a blast while I was there and learned a ton, so I’d like the workshop to continue so that more people can attend in the future.

NOTE! (IF YOU TRIED TO DONATE IN THE PAST WEEK)

If you tried to send a donation in the past week, check my profile. So far, the only confirmed money I have is from the people who are listed on that page. The Write-a-Thon emails me to tell me when I receive donations or sponsorships, but it doesn’t send me an email or any other identifying information. If you tried to donate and never got a paypal login page, then something went wrong and you might have to try again. I know, it’s a bummer! I’m not sure who’s in charge of the site design, but I think it’s generally a work in progress each year.

You can also drop me a line in email (kehrli at gmail dot com), comments on my website, or in my tumblr ask box.

WHAT DO YOU GET

The satisfaction of having donated to an awesome workshop! And you have encouraged me not to just give up now! Yay! Encouragement! I am AN ENCOURAGEMENT SPONGE.

Also!

If you go to my member profile and either donate or sponsor me for $10 or more, I will send you the SUPER SECRET password and url for my clarion website. The posts will contain what I’m working on, as well as my discussion afterward regarding what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and how I feel about what I’m writing. YES! You’ll get to read raw, unfinished fiction. O____O;

I will even answer process questions! Well, if you have them.

If $10 is a bit steep for a donation to a writing workshop, for $5, I’ll send you an ebook (hopefully I’ll be able to get it into mobi, epub, and pdf) containing several of my previously published stories, some of which are not currently available online.

If you have TONS of money to throw at good causes this month, and you drop $25 or more in my bucket (and are a writer), I will critique one of your short stories (up to 5000 words in length). I am a professionally published SF/F short story writer and I currently edit for Shimmer Magazine. I know things!

Obviously, this subdomain is already up (and I’ve just put up my post for Day 1), but the ebook is going to take a few more days to get put together. My critique turn around will be about a week after you send me the story, and you can wait to send me a story for critique until you’ve got one finished. 🙂

DONATION INSTRUCTIONS (kinda)

Finally, I know that the donation site is not completely intuitive. If you’re sponsoring, it should let you choose how much to sponsor me for (7 cents for each of the 150 hours will get you to about $10), and then it’ll just be done. If you’re not going to make an account and just want to donate, you should be able to choose to skip registration. After skipping registration and choosing an amount to donate, the website should automatically open PayPal or another payment window.

If it doesn’t open that up, you can either email the site or just try again. Otherwise, it’ll just show your donation as “unconfirmed” for a few days before it vanishes. Eep.

Also, although Clarion sends me an email from the treasurer to inform me that I’ve received sponsorships and donations, they do not share any of your information with me. Therefore, after donating, please drop me an email: kehrli at gmail dot com so I can send you the password / ebook / etc.

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

I’m using the Write-a-Thon this year to really get on track to write regularly. It’s taken several years to do this because it (embarrassingly) took until earlier this year for me to finally get treated for depression. It’s kind of a long story, but it’ll probably get mentioned in the posts when I discuss the problems I’m having jump-starting my writing productivity.

Back in 2008, I went to Clarion in San Diego, and it was definitely a life-changing experience. Prior to that, I hadn’t sold any short stories, so my acceptance into the workshop was the first time I got external validation regarding my fiction writing.

I have blogged occasionally about Clarion and what it meant to me. In order to read the posts that I wrote about Clarion while I was there (and a few I wrote afterward), check out the clarion and clarionucsd tags on my old LJ:

http://kehrli.livejournal.com/tag/clarion%20ucsd

http://kehrli.livejournal.com/tag/clarion

Anyway, thanks for visiting and/or donating! If you have any further questions, either pop them into the comment box here or drop me an email: kehrli at gmail dot com.

Even if you can’t/don’t feel like donating to Clarion or sponsoring me in the Write-a-Thon, please do share this with your friends, especially if any of them might be interested in reading my write-a-thon blog posts and/or getting a professional short story critique.