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‘Thank you for taking part in this charity event. You’re using your passion and talent to make a difference for a cause you care about. Hats off to you.’

To the person sponsoring:

‘This challenge is difficult. Really difficult. Not everyone will complete it. Your sponsor is added motivation in the dark hours. Thank you for digging deep.’

This was how the letter began to those who signed up to the 3 Peaks Writing Challenge. The idea was to create an adventure, akin to climbing mountains – such as the three peaks – but for people who had little interest in physical challenges; for those who loved writing. The key ingredients were:

· Taking people out of their comfort zones

· Creating a challenge that would test a person, with not everyone completing it

· Giving people an opportunity to have fun with the pursuit they love

That manifested into one day, fifteen hours, to complete three stories (three thousand words each) from opening lines supplied on the starting line. Nine thousand words in total. On topics a person didn’t choose. Six hundred words an hour, for fifteen hours. Would anyone take it up?

Of course they did. Because we would. And everything we create, we do so with a singular thought: would we, as lovers of writing and books, be interested in this?

Around a hundred people answered the call. More than we’d hoped for. More than we believed would be game to pit themselves against it. A great start to what we hope will be an annual event in a writer’s calendar.

What happened?

The day began for participants at 9 a.m. That’s when they received their first email with the opening line:

‘The surf lapped my face, licking me into consciousness. I raised my head and brought a layer of beach with it. How had I ended here?’

Ready, steady, go!

Turn that into a three-thousand-word-story and email it back for the second line.

To be on track, participants would have to complete the first stage in five hours. We checked our emails after two hours, believing there may be some super-fast writers. Zero returns. Then again, after three hours. Zero returns. Four hours, and five hours. Zero returns. Had we made the challenge too difficult? Was it impossible?

Looking back now, either this was the trickiest opening or people were warming up, finding their rhythm, much like a distance runner, as this was the slowest leg of everyone’s journey. Once it was behind them, the pace quickened.

The second opening was longer, giving runners a water-break-boost to propel them onwards:

‘When does the future begin? Is it personal, a crossing of boundaries from one state to another, from youth to adulthood, like a butterfly emerging from a pupa? Is it tomorrow, and can never be entered, a horizon in a curved world? Or was it the invention of the hydrogen engine, now cheaper than a car and enabling the populous to fly, that made this the future?’

The last opening offered a change in genre, and the most scope to take the story in any direction:

‘Do the dead know they are dead? And if so, what did that make her?’

Then the participants were done. Spent. Nine thousand words poorer, but three stories richer. A fantastic realisation of what they can achieve in a day. At that pace, a person could write the first draft of a book in a week!

Not everyone made the midnight deadline. In fact, although everyone completed two stories, only a quarter of those who started made it over the finish line. All seemed to enjoy the experience, though, once they’d had the Sunday to recover!

Raising money for charity

We asked participants for the total they’d raised for their chosen charities, and what those charities were. It wasn’t a prerequisite for entering, but why not have deserving causes benefit from their endeavours? There were charities we’d heard of – Cancer research, Macmillan etc. – and local causes that we hadn’t.

One participant, Paul Rand, was raising money in aid of the Grange Methodist Church building redevelopment. He had the genius idea of asking people to donate at least £30 to choose a character name or object to feature in one of his stories. He also declared that everyone who donated at least £10 would receive copies of his three stories after the event. What a fantastic way to raise money! He raised seven hundred pounds for his local church. Well done, Paul!

In total, over four thousand pounds was raised for various charities, vindicating our belief that people would want to challenge themselves this way. We’ll definitely be making this an annual event. And now we have a target, a challenge, to surpass ourselves. Five thousand pounds next year?