Clarion West is a writing program that takes aspiring professional writers and gives them a six-week boot camp in what it takes to make it in the field. It is an amazing program, as much for the community that surrounds it as for the writers it turns out. (Though that list of writers is long and storied!)
I’m doing the Write-A-Thon this year in order to help raise money for Clarion West. My goal: finish the draft of the novel I’m currently working on, tentatively titled The Phoenix Crown. I am 65k words into the book and need at least 20k more to round out a first draft.
About the project:
When a mysterious woman named Nonehle comes to Ceris Royenne and asks her to help take the throne of Matinne, Ceris says no. Then the rebel company she leads is nearly wiped out, leaving only a handful of survivors behind. With the life she’s built in ashes and pursued by the most vicious of the six great mercenary companies of Matinne, Ceris’s only refuge is in audacity—and the throne.
Between Nonehle and the Phoenix Crown are mercenaries, courtiers, the arcane politics of Matinne, and a king who gained his throne by subterfuge and murder. Their allies are few, but Ceris and Nonehle are both in possession of vast and troubling magical talents. They will both have to come to grips with those talents: for Nonehle the ability to to show people the deepest secret fears of their hearts, for Ceris the warmaga talent that is a deadly inheritance from her mother. In a country where hidden blades are everywhere and not even the strongest of allies is what they seem, this pair will take power—no matter the cost.
If this intrigues you, or even if you’d just like to donate to the most amazing writing program in the universe, you can donate at my Write-a-thon page. Clarion West helps take writers from aspiring professionals to pros, and it’s responsible for some of the best writers working in the field today.
If I get over $100 in donations, I will write a short story alongside my novel work over the write-a-thon, and my donors will be the very first people to lay eyes on it!
