What's a WRITE-A-THON?

 

My online writing group, writersandcritters, is in the midst of a WRITE-A-THON  for the full month of August. We did this last year, and it was a great success, so onward again in 2022. 

Normally, we are each committed to sending in two submissions per month and four critiques. At least, we aim for that. Life and what it delivers sometimes makes it less than that or more, depending the circumstances. But for August, we do not need to sub or crit, unless we want to. What we are doing is writing something every single day. No length requirements, no time limits. A prompt is given which can help some members get started, but it is not necessary to use.

We head each email to the group with something like Nancy's THON #11, which means it is my offereing for the 11th day of August. We shortened the full name which works just fine.

It has been interesting to read what other members have sent. Sometimes, it is a poem. It can be a paragraph, or a full page. It's whatever the writer wants to do. I've never had a problem finding a topic. 

A few have selected a theme to follow. One member is traveling through Germany with her husband and daughter, so she writes every day about their travels. Another is writing about culture differences. One is writing about how she met her husband in a continuing story. One is writing childhood memories. Some have no theme at all, something different each day. That's my category, although many of mine have been memory pieces. 

It's nice to do this with a group, but you can do it on your own, as well. You can start tomorrow on August 11 and go through September 10. A full month. Or wait until September 1st and run through that 30 day period. There are no real rules. The direction is to write something every day. Write with abandon. Write with passion. Most of all, don't worry about time limits or deadlines or commitments. The WRITE-A-THON is for you. Just write and enjoy!

I have already found a few of my daily THON offerings that could be expanded into a personal essay. I am keeping each day's writing in file folder, so that I can go back later and work on the ones that seem of interest. 

So how about it? Will any of you accept my challenge to participate in your own WRITE-A-THON? If you belong to any kind of writing group, draft the members to do this with you. If not, do it yourself. You might be surprised at how much comes from this. The pieces often start with fluff, and then the good stuff starts coming forth.