October 2008 Archives

After printing a bunch of stuff weekend for NaNo, I got the warning on Friday that my ink cartridge was going kaput. The last time I had to replace my ink cartridge was a couple of months ago while doing all of the JixDisney stuff. And the time before that was last November during NaNo. The only time I even use my printer is for NaNo (or recently JixDisney). Seriously, I telecommute 500 miles away to the East Coast and my printer literally has dust on it. Oh, and after my last printer broke from dis-use, I threw it in the garbage, and the only reason I have a printer now is because my FIL decided, after I had happily lived an entire year without one (that was before NaNo), that I HAD to have one. It's working out well now, admittedly.

ANYWAY, after getting the warning on Friday, the cartridge was completely useless by Sunday morning. So, I spent the $30 (and the hour round trip into town and back) and replaced it. And guess what? I just got the warning AGAIN right now. Argh!!! I can't afford to replace my $30 ink cartridge every three days!!!!

I knew what I wanted to write! Or, rather, that I didn't want to write two things. Maybe I could go for the gusto and write both? 50K of fanfic and 50K of original fic?

Naaaahhhh...

Running NaNoWriMo takes a lot of time and resources, and those people work hard. I always knew they did, but getting a glimpse of some behind-the-scenes stuff as an ML and a forum moderator has opened my eyes even more. I've donated every year that I've done NaNo, because I really believe in it. They give me so much that I want to give back. If every Wrimo donated just $10, then the fundraising goals would almost be met that way alone. It's understandable that not everybody can afford to donate, though.

I was perusing the ML forum on the site today, and I laughed when I realized that every poster has a halo (a sign you donated) next to their name. You never see that in the regular forum. And that's what got me thinking about all of this--seeing all of those halos lined up next to each other.

I started perusing the site, looking at the various things they've got going on, when I came across the "Donating When Broke" page.

At the bottom was a description of GoodSearch (quoted directly from the NaNoWriMo page):

This Yahoo-powered search engine donates a penny to the charity of your choice for every search you do. Before you start searching just put "The Office of Letters and Light" in the "Who do you Goodsearch for?" box. That will lock in NaNoWriMo's parent nonprofit as the recipient of all your searches from that point forward.

Cool thing: We've earned almost $2,000 in Goodsearch funds since we started this in 2007! If every NaNoWriMo participant switched to Goodsearch for November, we could pay for most of our expenses through Goodsearch funds alone.

I am so switching for November, and I hope that everyone who reads this blog will, too. All of the things we Wrimos use--the forums, the author profiles, the buddy lists, the word count widgets, etc. etc. etc.--all cost money, and I love the idea of giving back and help defraying the cost of the resources I use.