I'm exhausted, but decided to post to a) update you with my progress and b) prove that I am still alive.

The Sponsorship

Sponsors: 28
Sponsorship Total: £92.50
Money Owed: £63.50
Money Paid: £29
Page Count: 98

Proof I'm Still Alive

I dunno. Throw a peanut at me or something!

Anyway, writing the sponsored novel has been stressful. I'm just about managing 30 pages a day but god, it's difficult. I think of a storyline to keep myself occupied and then it just disintegrates into babble. I'm starting to just write a series of unrelated bits and pieces. If I'm really struggling, I'm writing bits from 'The Chronicles of Stan' or 'The Great Couch Happening of '69' to boost my page count, or ranting pointlessly when times aren't quite that hard.

Also, I got my guitar and clarinet! I managed to totally ruin the G and high E strings on the guitar (they were worn as it was, then I played for a good two hours yesterday) and I'm finding the clarinet impossible to get any sound out of. I fill my lungs with air, blow, blow, blow harder and then get a high squeak just as I'm going blue in the face. And Dad took it upon himself to put it together while I was doing something else yesterday - forgetting to grease the cork bits. Now I can't take the damn thing apart. Thanks, Dad.

I seriously didn't think the clarinet would be so difficult. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I will get it to work. I'm not spending £90 on an instrument so that it can gather dust on my desk.

The final challenge is coming up for the Prince's Trust Team 46.

The task involves taking a group of disadvantaged people (in our case, we'll be working with elderly folk who are in care and generally never get out of their care home) and treating them to the time of their lives. Not only is the completion of this challenge essential to our course, it's also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the people we work with; an experience that we hope will leave them with happy memories to last a lifetime.

However, we need to raise funds in order to achieve this goal. Part of the challenge is that there are no loans, no grants and no financial help available to the team members; all funds must be raised ourselves. Alongside the team's collective efforts to raise funds, I'll be writing a sponsored novel. My goal is 3p per page, or £3 if I manage to write 150 pages in five days (the deadline being midnight, Friday 18 March).

Any contributions would be hugely appreciated by myself, the team, our team leaders and especially the people who will benefit most from the funds. I recognise that a lot of you can't sponsor me, being overseas and all that jazz, but I know you'll all give moral support at least in doing something which will probably drive me mad!

So, people who are able and willing to sponsor me, do drop me a line (stating who you are, where you are and how much you'll pledge) on kv_pilkington@hotmail.co.uk and I'll reply with further instructions. As proof of my efforts (because nobody wants to sponsor someone to simply sit on their backsides all day long), I'll be posting my writing online under the tag the prince's trust (2011): novel, irrespective of quality. Obviously it's not going to be fantastic; I'll be aiming for 30 pages a day!

PLEASE NOTE: the fundraising week is all next week, from today (Friday 11) to Sunday 20 March. Any sponsorships sent later than that will be invalid, so bear that in mind and include a return address.

Interested in how I intend to manage 150 pages over next week? I will employ the use of my lightning fast typing skills, a complete disregard for quality, Dr Wicked's Write or Die and witchcraft/a time machine.

The book will be written with no chapter headings, in 14-pt Times New Roman. My fonty staple diet. So if you're unsure about my progress you can copy and paste my drivel into a word document, switch it to that font and see for yourselves!

One last thing: tell your friends! I'd love to get a whole gaggle of sponsors to treat these people to an absolutely spectacular time.