Monday March 30th, 2009

The exercise:

Today, on a very special edition of Daily Writing Practice, Blossom discovers... wait, that's not right. Hold on, let me try that again.

Today's starter is: fundraising. Yes, I'm asking for your money - but I'm also offering something in return for those who are able to donate big. Read on for the full details.

Mine:

There are a lot of very good causes out there and a lot of good people are trying to raise money for them. Personally, I find it a bit overwhelming. So I've always chosen just one to support - in the past it has been the Canadian Cancer Society, as there is so much cancer in my family tree I think it might be an honorary grandparent by now. But these days I'm even more selfishly supporting a different charity.

In January of 2006 I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the ripe old age of 27. I spent five nights in the hospital while they tried to figure out what type of insulin worked best for me and I tried to put back on some of the twenty pounds I had lost in the previous month. For those of you are curious, I went from 135 to 115 - so I didn't exactly need to go on a diet.

I'm not much interested in funding new treatments or better needles. I want this silly disease cured. With that in mind I participated last year in the Telus Walk to Cure Diabetes for the first time. It snuck up on me and I registered pretty late, but a good friend and I still managed to raise $500 in about a week. I'm getting a head start on it this year and I'd like to raise a lot more.

So if you'd like to help out please head over here. I know with the current economic situation that money is tight, it certainly is for me, but every little bit is appreciated. However if you're able to afford a larger donation I'd like to humbly offer something in return.

Here's the deal: if you donate $50 or more (Canadian... which is about $40 U.S. and 28 Pounds, as a comparison), I will write you a 1,000 word story. All you have to do is let me know you've donated, either through email or by leaving a message here, and give me any three words of your choosing. I will write you a short story based around your words - they can be as unrelated or as connected as you want.

I won't promise that the story will be mind bogglingly brilliant, but I will do my best to make it enjoyable. It will not be a first draft; it will be edited multiple times - I'm too much of a perfectionist to pretend otherwise.

I can't bake, so I'm not having a bake sale to fund raise. I can write though, so this is my offering. I'll keep it open for the next two weeks.

It will depend on how many people take me up on the offer but I will attempt to get the stories done before the end of April. If that doesn't look like it's going to happen I'll let people know but I'm hoping I can keep the deadline.

If you have any questions, ask away. Thank you for reading.