It’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and you’ve hit the wall: you have a case of writer’s block.  What’s a novelist to do? 

In anticipation of a mid-month lull, NaNoWriMo organizers have created a brilliant mini-event to help their marathon fundraisers push through the effects of writer’s block and on to success.   Tomorrow evening NaNoWriMo sponsors the Night of Writing Dangerously (so popular that registration is now full):

The Night of Writing Dangerously will be held from 6 PM to 11 PM on November 15, 2008. Eat great food. Drink great drinks. Take part in writing challenges and sprints with fellow participants and the NaNoWriMo staff, or just plug in the headphones and lose yourself in noveling abandon for five delicious hours.

The Night of Writing Dangerously is sure to get those brain waves moving again.  And since our last NaNoWriMo posting, Firstgiving fundraisers have been busy raising more money with their personal fundraising pages, bringing their fundraising total to almost $33,000!

Have fundraiser’s block?  Check out our free webinars and the Tips and Tricks section of our blog for ideas and inspiration for fundraising dangerously.

• Here at Firstgiving, we have been known to highlight the stories of marathon runner-fundraisers, who continuously inspire us with their feats of athletic and online fundraising prowess.  You can check out some of their profiles here. 
• But this month a group of marathoners of a whole different sort started popping up all over Firstgiving.com with their fundraising pages: marathon WRITER-fundraisers!

 As we soon discovered, November is National Novel Writing Month, aptly abbreviated NaNoWriMo.  We’re not exactly sure how to pronounce that, but we do know that these creative minds have raised over $20,000 this year on Firstgiving.com for the Office of Letters and Light, the NPO that sponsors the event. 

In its 10th year, NaNoWriMo now has an international participation rate of over 100,000 writers.  It is exactly what it sounds like: participants commit to write an entire novel in a marathon writing session over the course of the month.  There’s Tupelo, Sarah, Cameo, and Mark, just to name a few of the 503 writers currently raising money on Firstgiving.  You can read more about the event here.   Many of these writers are doing a great job of getting the word out by providing blurbs from their novels-in-progress on their fundraising pages and linking them to their personal blogs. 

Here’s a novel idea: imagine how much money your NPO could raise if several hundred people all raised several hundred dollars for you.  That’s what’s remarkable about NaNoWriMo.  Most of these pages have fundraising goals of $200-300.  And a lot of them have met their goals!  We also think NaNoWriMo did a really good job of posting this for all to see.

Anyone have training tips for a marathon of writing?