All writers who signs up for the program can use the website to track their own progress, create profiles, upload excerpts of their novels, and participate in discussions on the website's forums. Forum titles include "Rules, Regulations & Other Minutiae" for questions about the program; "Plot Doctoring" for authors to ask for help with writing snarls; "NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul" for writers who need to vent; and "This Is Going Better Than I Expected" for those experiencing the opposite feeling. Members can also search for a group of prospective writers completing the challenge in their area so they can meet compatriots in person. The program has recently started sponsoring the "Night of Writing Dangerously," a fundraiser for NaNoWriMo, held in San Francisco about halfway through the month. To attend, writers must raise at least $250 for the program. During the night, regular "word wars" are held to see who can write the most in a set period of time; whoever does so gets to wear a special hat. Raffles are held, with sponsoring companies providing items to raffle off.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
