Dear Friends,
I write you from my hospital bed, where Leslie Howle is administering to my thumbscrew wounds — yes, I am overjoyed to volunteer for the Clarion West Write-a-Thon this summer! To raise money for this worthy, yet strangely underfunded, cause, I encourage you to sponsor me with whatever small pledge you can.
But in addition, I propose to auction off various portions of the story to the highest bidder, portions that, needless to say, often or generally or occasionally come from the deepest, wildest part of a writer's conscious, unconscious, or just-barely-conscious mind.
The story's title, the characters' names, descriptions, and backstories, the setting, the genre, the theme, all of them are up for grabs. They are listed on eBay.
I encourage you use this opportunity to pound your enemies from a distance, perhaps, or exalt your lovers, or spouses, or your friends. Or to provide unpredictable cameo appearances for your own characters. Or to design an inevitably distorted self-portrait. Or to commemorate some beautiful or otherwise evocative place you've never gotten around to writing about yourself.
Bear in mind, though, that I will be writing this story for publication, and bear in mind also that, because of the inscrutable yet irritating laws of fiction, I cannot guarantee anything about the end result, except that it will be of the highest possible quality — and I do mean possible!
So please, bid early and often. And even if you don't want to participate in my story to such an intimate degree, please consider pleging something to the write-a-thon this year.
Sincerely,
Paul Park