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Good luck on this penultimate weekend of NaNoWriMo. It's going to be a huge two days! By Sunday, I think we'll end up surpassing our collective 1.6 billion word count from last year's NaNoWriMo.

And speaking of Sunday...By bedtime on that day we should all be at—and this number just made me cry a little when I saw it—36,674 words.

Let me double-check that.

Yep. Shoot.

If there's anyone else riding the slow train like me, can we at least make a pact to be at 30,000 by Sunday night? We can surge ahead in the final week, and when we cross the finish line and dump Gatorade all over ourselves it will be all the sweeter because we were so far behind going into Week Four.

This Sunday is also the Night of Writing Dangerously in San Francisco! The OLL office currently looks like a candy bomb went off, as Julia, Elaine, and Carolyn load up goodie bags with books and gadgets, carefully pack raffle prizes in baskets, and test the pyrotechnic display we'll be setting off every time someone crosses over 50K at the event.

If you're going to be there, we can't wait to hug you. If you're not, we'll miss you, and we'll post photos of the event on the site on Monday.

Have a great, productive weekend, everyone!

Chris

You may have noticed the Fund-o-Meter has been getting very colorful lately. We've seen a heartening surge in donations from participants, and we've continued to add our non-donor income to the totals, including all the money from merch sales.

Our goal before December 1 is to fill up all the books in the Fund-o-Meter, pay for both NaNo and YWP, and raise enough money to spend 2010 working on all the improvements laid out in those books, including developing a year-round version of NaNoWriMo.

To make sure we get there, we're going to host an all-day online fundraising drive on Tuesday the 24th. For it, we've set ourselves the crazy goal of raising $100,000 in donations in 24 hours. The most we've ever raised in a single day is $30,000, so this is a little loony.

But we have faith. We also have a very special offer.

If NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program can raise $100,000 in donations through our online Donation Station on Tuesday the 24th, I will write a song about the fundraising drive—tentatively entitled "That Beautiful Tuesday"—and perform it on NaNoVideo with staff musical accompaniment and Lindsey doing an interpretive dance alongside us.

This video will be a keepsake that NaNoWriMo participants of all ages can treasure and wince at for decades to come. Better still, your donations will mean we can bring back NaNoWriMo and the YWP for another great year of inspiration and encouragement in 2010.

The drive commences at 12:01 AM Pacific on Tuesday the 24th and runs till 11:59 PM Pacific that night. Thanks for helping us in our wordy mission!

Chris

We've been doing evening writing sprints over in Twitterland the last two nights, and they've been a heap of fun. We'll be doing them again tonight from 8 pm to 10:30 pm, Pacific. Come join us!

If you're looking for a way to procrastinate on your novel until then, another year of behind-the-scenes NaNoWriMo trivia has been added to the NaNo History page for your reading enjoyment. That page may now officially be the single longest page on the internet, for which we apologize.

See you tonight at the races!

Chris

Happy second half, Wrimos!

If you haven't already, check out the Donation Derby. There is a very exciting competition raging between regions all over the world!

My tired mid-November brain misreported the current regional leaders; I had initially listed the regions with the highest total donation instead of the highest average per participant. (This is why I am a writer and not a data analyst.) As of November 16, the Kodiak Bears are led by New York City; the Siberian Tigers are led by California's Elsewhere region; the Komodo Dragons are led by Southern Illinois; the Wolverines are led by Augusta, Georgia; the Tasmanian Devils are led by Spartanburg, South Carolina; and the Badgers are led by Dickinson, North Dakota. Way to go regions! My apologies for being a big blockhead! Stay tuned, as there are sure to be upsets and last-minute surprises aplenty.

To learn more about the Donation Derby, read the FAQ!

Thanks so much to the folks who donate in other ways, too. You make our hearts (and taste buds!) so very, very happy.

Off to eat some more Kinder Surprise,
Lindsey

Zooooooom! That whooshing sound you just heard was the first half of NaNoWriMo flying past us. Congrats (and slightly envious glares) to all of you who crossed the 25,000 mark this weekend! For those of us who fell behind this weekend, let's pledge to get to 25K by bedtime tonight, okay?

Okay!

We've already written over a billion words collectively (last year, we ended the month at 1.6 billion), and I'm starting to wonder if two billion words might be in the cards for this year. Holy cow.

We'll be sending out a pep talk from Community Liaison Lindsey Grant soon!

Chris

We just crossed the 4% donation mark! Thank you to our halo'd donors! If you've been having a great time this month but haven't chipped in something to help pay for NaNo and the YWP, please take a moment to do so today. We can't pull this off without you!

And a quick note to shutterbug Wrimos! I've attended some hilarious, productive write-ins this year, and kicked myself every time for not bringing my camera. Do you have some memorable photos from NaNoWriMo '09 events? Please add them to the NaNoWriMo Flickr Pool! When we're feeling sad about our novels, a swim through the pool always makes us feel better. (Go, notquitetrish!)

Chris

Hi Wrimos!

Thanks to everyone who donated a surge protector! We racked up the 20 we needed in no time. You guys are the best!

After a little more maintenance, the Word Count Widgets are back up and running (and, no doubt, displaying some killer word counts!)

In other news, we finalized the design for the winner shirts today. There was quite a bit of healthy debate (and only a moment of heated sword fighting) over the dimensions of the image. This shirt is going to be pretty sweet!

I hope everyone is happy and noveling out there in NaNoLand!

Lindsey

How about that Week Two, eh?

A pep talk from Lynda Barry has just gone out to help you through the wilds of this week. If you're not getting the pep talks in your inbox, you can always find them on the 2009 Pep Talks page on the site. We'll post the pep talks within 24 hours of sending them out to participants. We hope they help you corral those plot bunnies!

And now for something completely different.

We're holding a Surge Protector Drive from now until November 16. Instead of donating, buy us a surge protector for the Night of Writing Dangerously Write-a-thon and you'll receive the $25 donation package and a halo! All you need to do is buy the cord, and forward the receipt along with your username and address! (We like to write dangerously, but not an electrical-fire kind of danger.)

Off to write at an indie bookstore,

Lindsey

Week Two of NaNoWriMo often gets a bad rap.

In previous years, Week Two has been blamed for everything from incidents of spontaneous limb-sloughing to global potato famines. We're afraid we've contributed to Week Two's poor brand image by yammering on and on about the challenges of this phase of the noveling adventure. We've said that getting over the Week Two Hump is the hardest and most important thing you'll do in November, and that if you can power out of Week Two's orbit with your word count intact then you're practically guaranteed a victory. Because Week Two can be so spirit-testing.

We were wrong. So, so wrong.

Thanks to a sizable grant we received this morning from the Week Two Tourism Bureau and Chamber of Commerce, we've come to understand that Week Two is actually the best week of NaNoWriMo. From here on out, we would like to echo the Week Two Tourism Bureau's sentiments that Week Six is actually the hardest week of the event. For reasons that we will articulate as soon as we understand them.

In the meantime, keep up those great word counts! Congrats to everyone who dug deep and rose to the challenge to be at 15,000 by bedtime last night. We rocked it!

Loving Week Two!

Chris

Hey there!

Dan is going to be taking the sites down for maintenance today around 2 pm Pacific. Which will give us the 20 minutes we need to write thousands of words and reach our sworn goal of 15,000 words for the day. Right? Right!

Practicing my high-speed typing maneuvers in anticipation,

Chris