The Write-a-Thon took place on May 17 at the library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, which is a cute little library and apparently the best-kept secret in midtown Manhattan. It began at 10:30 but I arrived around noon and immediately began whispering to the nice young women from the New York Writers Coalition. They pointed me to the table of gift bags, refreshments, and the “prompt station” where you could pull phrases like “his mother’s eyes” from an idea jar, or sign up for a workshop.

I did not sign up for a workshop. I came in with my notebooks, one of the few, the very very few, in the library space without a laptop computer. I wrote in my notebook, planning what to write for the day. When I got tired of that, I worked on a short script. When I got tired of that, I worked on a short essay. When I got tired of that, I went back to my notebook to “free write.”

What is a “free write”? I like to think of it as a form of literary throat-clearing, or perhaps vocal exercises. Here is an example from that day:

Everyone has a laptop but me. Is anything else actually “writing”? Wait, she has a pen in her hand, so does he, and so does that woman behind me. But that’s all. Should I get a laptop? Just one more thing to lug around, though, and do I need another keyboard in my life? Look, that woman is surfing Google, she’s not writing, although I wish I had internet access for just a sec, I could look up “illness other than cholera which arises from contaminated water,” although I think I’ll just give her malaria. Can I call her Maritzka? Or is that just ridiculously character-y? Melanie? Is anyone named Melanie anymore?

So you see, that’s why it stays in the free-write notebook.

By the end of the day, I had a first draft of a short script, “Grandparents: The Director’s Cut.” I had made considerable headway on a short essay called “Dear Me,” which is a letter to my 14-year-old self and hence quite tragic. I had a very sore hand.

And thanks to my sponsors -- Cecily, Mayte, Brian, Leo, Linda, Deborah, Terry, Kevin, Michael and Jody -- I had raised $410 for the New York Writers Coalition.



The top fundraiser was this girl



Thanks to all of you!

posted by Elizabeth at 1:14 PM