Write Every Day - Day 1

[luzula]

In December I am hosting Write Every Day. Welcome, everyone!

What is the Write Every Day challenge?
Write Every Day is just what its name says: We challenge each other to write, every single day. Our goal is to encourage one another and provide the accountability and/or motivation that some of us find very useful in keeping the words flowing. However, there's no obligation and no pressure, and if writing didn't happen for you on any given day, there won't be any judgement, just support and sympathy!

Who can participate?
Everyone is welcome! We’re an open-minded, nonjudgmental group of people who enjoy writing.

What do I have to do?
We’ll post each day with a little bit about our writing and a running tally of participants. All you need to do is drop by the comments on the most recent tally entry to let us know how you’re doing. Please know that you are never obligated to check in. Also, if you'd like to comment on someone else's comment but aren't checking in for yourself, that's perfectly fine too. We're really easygoing 'round here, and conversation is absolutely encouraged.

Is there a word limit or quota?
Nope. Write as little as an “alibi” sentence (just what it sounds like—a sentence you write to say you’ve written, an alibi for the day, as it were) or as much as you’d like. All word counts are welcome!

Is there any restriction on the kind of writing I can do?
Absolutely not! Fanfiction, original fiction, screenplays, blog posts, meta, academic writing, morning pages, reviews, editing, letter-writing, nonsense poems, bucket list: if it feels like writing to you, it counts!

Do I have to participate all the time?
No way! You can come and go at your pleasure.

Do you have any goals for the month? And let me know if you did any writing today.

As for me, I have certainly not been writing every day myself the past week, because feelings have been interfering with my writing brain. I was well on the way to meeting my 150K pledge at Get Your Words Out, but after two weeks of writing almost nothing, I think I'll cut myself some slack and let that goal go. I'm currently at 134K, so given my normally-functioning brain, I could do it, but, well.

I will make an attempt to write tonight, though--actually I have a fic sitting pretty much finished, so the easiest thing to do would be to edit and post that.

Comments

[badly_knitted]

Hello again, and thank you for hosting!

Good luck with writing tonight. I hope things will improve for you so that you can get your writing mojo back.

Not sure I have any specific writing goals this month except to keep plodding along. I do have a couple of things I need to write for challenges, so hopefully I can get those done.

Dec 1st - 1151 words, a triple drabble and most of a fic for a challenge. Hoping to finish that one tomorrow. This has been my best writing day out of the last two weeks. I surprised myself.

[luzula]

Thanks for the good wishes, and yay for surprising yourself with a good writing day!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! I got a really great prompt, and it just took off. I love when that happens.

[sylvanwitch]

First, THANK YOU for hosting us, my friend. I'm looking forward to it. Please do let me know if you need anything we can help with!

Second, *hugs*. I think it's good to cut yourself some slack, and I do hope your editing and posting comes to fruition.

Third, I would like to finish the catharsis short story I started this past Thursday; it has decided to be body horror. Today (Day 1), I added 594 words to that, about 400 story and the rest notes for where it's going. Overall, I would like to finish this story and also "Ed and Ev Are Not in Love," my m/m romance novelette? Novella? SOMEthing. Those are my goals for this month.

[luzula]

Thanks! *hugs back* I should be fine to host, but I'll let you know if I need anything.

Those seem like good goals, and you made good progress on them today! \o/

[osprey_archer]

I have finished copy-edits for my Christmas spy story! Now I just need to write the dadblasted blurb...

[luzula]

Good work! And good luck with the dadblasted blurb, then. : )

[alexseanchai]

this is not a check-in bc I haven't written anything yet today, but my writing goals for the month are read through a shitton of research stuff, watch a bunch more, and practice and take notes on skills my newest novel protagonist needs to acquire

the notes can count for WED/@getyourwordsout, I have decreed, but at least this calendar year, any research or plotting that doesn't get typed doesn't count

thank you for hosting!

[luzula]

Got it! Good luck with your goals. : )

[sanguinity]

Thank you so much for hosting!

I'm sorry feelings brain has been writing hijacking brain! I think extending yourself some grace and compassion about it is very wise -- and honestly, 134K for the year is an impressive output! Nothing to sneeze at there!

December goals: as per usual, write every day.

Dec 1: Wrote an alibi sentence before packing up to travel, but then had a REALLY GOOD brainstorming session with my partner in crime, then more brainstorming with my wife in the car, and then MORE brainstorming with the before-mentioned criminal. This story had WAY too many moving parts, and they were camlocking instead of meshing smoothly. Now, however, I think we've got all the major parts unjammed! I'll have to rewrite most of what I have written, but that's no major loss -- I'm looking forward to it, actually.

Also, I signed up for a fic exchange, and wrote my exchange letter, too.

[luzula]

You're welcome! : )

This thing with setting a word count goal for the year was new to me, and on the whole I think it's been a net positive, even if I have on occasion felt a little stress on days when I didn't get words (I was ahead anyway, it was fine). But there comes a time when you need to invoke force majeure...

That sounds like good progress! What story is it? *curious*

[sanguinity]

Yes, you build cushion and resilience into your plans to deal with all the usual stuff, but sometimes life hands you something bigger than that.

Dangerous Liaisons x Flight of the Heron!

Five major characters, two of whom are actively scheming and plotting against the other three, before the three finally hand the two their comeuppance -- it's a lot to juggle! And in the first place, I needed backstory to get everyone at the French Court at the same time -- that's where a ton of our brainstorming went, to be frank. Something something enemies war opposing sides etc.

[luzula]

Oh yay! Very much looking forward to that, because it's something I would love to read but would find quite difficult to write. And it does sound like something with potentially a lot of moving pieces, yes. Hyarrowen managed to get Keith and Ewen at the French court together, so it's been done before!

[sanguinity]

Yes! We did work out a way to do it: remove Albemarle from the confrontation with Cumberland, so that Keith, seeing the writing on the wall where his career is concerned, sells his commission and uses his newfound liberty to take Ewen's "final" letter directly to Alison. Then, in an effort to stay nearby and be helpful to Alison, he becomes a tutor (fencing, hunting, military strategy, English) to someone at Court, and becomes drawn into that social circle that way. For my purposes, it has the added benefit that sometimes he'd be in town and sometimes he'd be at someone's country estate, which makes the epistolary format easier to accomplish.

Which kinda makes me want to write the side-story of Keith bringing the letter to Alison and Ewen later joining them, since I don't think the DL story will much get into that...

Oh, well, there are worse problems than having too many stories one wants to write!

[luzula]

Ohh, I didn't realise it would be an epistolary story like DL, but of course! That sounds like a lot of fun, and also I like your solution for getting Keith into the right place.

You could always do a prequel later!

[sanguinity]

Ohh, I didn't realise it would be an epistolary story like DL, but of course!

I'd like it to be, but of course that's one more moving part to deal with: contriving things so that the action does all appear in a letter or note someone wrote to someone else.

You could always do a prequel later!

Or first, if I get too frustrated with the main story!

[brithistorian]

Thanks for hosting! I'm looking forward to spending December with you!

Day 1: I hope it's not an omen of how December's going to go, but I'm starting the month with a couple of alibi sentences: 49 words to "Madame Park's Academy II."

[luzula]

You're welcome!

And good work keeping at the writing--I don't think word count on the 1st of the month has any correlation with the other days. : )

[cornerofmadness]

My goals, mostly to edit the novel and working on treats for fandomtrees (still time to sign up everyone)

about 300 words via the editing tonight

[luzula]

Good luck with your goals, and good work writing on the 1st!

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[carenejeans]

Thank you for hosting!

Day 1: Editing and struggling with wayward sentences. 8-)

My goal for the month is to just write every day. No word count goals, no finish X number of fics or essays, no challenges, no pledges or promises of any kind beyond writing something every day.

I too am letting my Get Your Words Out goal go. I have SO MUCH stuff already written in notes and rough draft that I want to finish. I really DON'T want to generate any more! I'm overwhelmed, and right now the idea of writing large chunks of NEW words every day is just, ugh. No. I mean, some days I probably will write a lot of new words; but what I really want to do is go slowly and spend some time mulling over and tinkering with things. And embrace the Alibi Sentence without guilt.

Thank you for letting me get this off my chest. ;-)

[luzula]

It's good to set ambitious goals, but it's also good to know when to let them go! I hope you can find some joy in writing this month. : )

[ysilme]

Thank you for hosting December! ♥ I hope your writing brain will soon be cooperative again. *hugs*
I've been doing not-NaNo in November (as in, doing the challenge but no longer tied to the NaNoWriMo organisation/website), but it didn't go well. I finished and even with a day to spare, but the creative writing part went really badly, and I didn't meet part of my set goals, which were finishing two or three smaller WIPs. Part of that was my voluntary job springing an unexpected amount of work on me which also was consuming an unusual amoung of brainpower, part was physical exhaustion from the ongoing project of cleaning out Siljan's mum's house. For December - and likely the months to follow, too - my goal is to get back into a good writing mode, since that got lost sometime earlier this year, and also because 2025 will bring major changes to my daily hours and rythm. Since I'm still quite busy I'm starting easy with falling back on my Nostalgia project, taking an old stories I've written several versions of and bringing this together to one draft at least, if not written "story" - story in that context would most likely mean large part draft with finished scenes in-between, but a continuous narrative. These stories tend to be my comfort writing, meaning I'll go back to them and write out more scenes, or add more draft, but most are really open-end.

[luzula]

Welcome! I hope December will bring less stress for you, and that you can find some joy in your comfort writing projects. <3

[trobadora]

Thank you for hosting this month! ♥

[luzula]

You're welcome! : )