One of the things I love best about fandom is the creativity involved (which of course is what Writercon is all about) and especially the way fans use their creativity to raise money for worthy causes.

Sometimes that involves selling or auctioning creative work -- fiction or fan art or writing prompts or knitted hats or scarves. It's a great way for fans who don't have tons of disposable income (or any, these days) to participate in a cause that excites them. The one drawback is that you can't always regulate your muse or your health or your free time due to family/work/school responsibilities, and sometimes it's a long wait for anyone who's won an auction to get the item they paid for, and on some occasions it just doesn't happen. We wanted to find a way to celebrate the creative in our fundraising efforts without this potential disappointment due to fulfillment problems we have no control over. (If fans choose to auction a piece of memorabilia or some creative work on their own and donate the proceeds to the Writercon Scholarship fund, we welcome that, but we can't put our official stamp on these mini-fundraisers.)

So here's our plan: the Writercon 09 Drabblefest.

Concom member Denny DC has gotten the ball rolling by pledging 50 cents for each drabble posted to our new comm, up to $100. Other members of the concom have have kicked in matching pledges up to $50 to generate drabbles in their particular fandoms or based on particular themes. (We also solicit matching funds to encourage more drabbles in your favorite fandoms, so contact me if you have thoughts along these lines and want to donate.)

So really, this fundraiser, all we need is a creative explosion from all of you. Write drabbles in your favorite fandoms, about your favorite pairings, either using the prompts we throw out every now and then, or not. Each drabble generates at least 50 cents, and if it's in a matching grants category, it could generate double (or triple) the amount. And we're old school drabble writers around here, drabbles are exactly 100 words, not counting a title of up to 15 words.

Post your newly-written drabbles at the Writercon100 drabble community. Tell your friends, tell your newsletter comms. If you want to encourage drabbles in your fandom by donating matching funds, please send me an LJ message!

Current matching fund categories:

• Whoverse
• Veronica Mars
• Queer as Folk
• Firefly/Serenity
• Harry Potter
• Supernatural
• Fandoms that have been around for less than a year: Leverage, Kings, Merlin, etc.
• Dirty drabbles (with an opportunity to be read at the Dirty Drabbles event at Writercon this summer), with an additional match for those featuring Giles/Ethan (BtVS) or Sam/Gene (Life on Mars), our OTP cage match co-winners and Spike, paired as you wish.
• Drabbles in any of the fandoms in LJ comm Fandom_of_One's small fandoms list

Keep watching; more fandoms will be added whenever a pledge comes in.

I told y'all that this time you could spam me instead of the other way around. C'mon over to the Writercon100 drabble community and get started!