New York Writers Coalition Write-a-Thon
The slogan for the NYWC’s biggest fundraiser is “Write Your A** Off” (asterisks theirs). Everyone who raised at least $100 in pledges was allowed to spend the day at the New York Center for Independent Publishing in Midtown, writing, attending workshops, eating snacks, and gathering the requisite tote bags and pens. All money goes to NYWC, which runs free or low-cost writing workshops for the disadvantaged and disenfranchised of New York.
The historic building’s main room, which doubles as the library, housed around 100 writers, off and on, from 10 to 6. Some people grimaced over their laptops; a surprising number smiled to themselves. People shared their projects with one another. As the day wore on and the free candy began to disappear, a lot of people slept. One man took a picture of the room, then uploaded it as his desktop image.
Chris Baty gave a post-lunch pep talk about the joys of high velocity writing. As the founder the National Novel Writing Month, in which participants write a 50,000-word novel every November, he had nothing but good things to say about privileging quantity over quality. “Every time you write, you should be writing things that make you cringe,” he advised. If you don’t write a crappy first draft, you won’t ever have anything to revise and make pretty.
So that’s how I spent the day---writing, and not worrying.
The historic building’s main room, which doubles as the library, housed around 100 writers, off and on, from 10 to 6. Some people grimaced over their laptops; a surprising number smiled to themselves. People shared their projects with one another. As the day wore on and the free candy began to disappear, a lot of people slept. One man took a picture of the room, then uploaded it as his desktop image.
Chris Baty gave a post-lunch pep talk about the joys of high velocity writing. As the founder the National Novel Writing Month, in which participants write a 50,000-word novel every November, he had nothing but good things to say about privileging quantity over quality. “Every time you write, you should be writing things that make you cringe,” he advised. If you don’t write a crappy first draft, you won’t ever have anything to revise and make pretty.
So that’s how I spent the day---writing, and not worrying.
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