This is the first hybrid ‘Writings from write-ins’ and general monthly writing update! If you’re only here to see how my monthly goals are coming along, skip to the end!

Writings from Write-ins

Write-ins are an activity in which a group of writers create flash fiction or ramblings according to a series of random, timed prompts. In our case, we get between 3 and 10 minutes per prompt. I usually try to start and finish an entire story during each session, instead of writing a bundle of unrelated snippets. This is an extra challenge, especially when you don’t know as you’re writing how many prompts are left!

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January 3rd – Story 10

This write-in was panic-led by a back up host as the usual host was traveling, which created some interesting and challenging prompts based on whatever came into his head in the moment. xD

Edit note: Man, this month really makes me look like I have issues with my mother. I promise we’re all good, and I am not a disappointment to her. I think…

1. Text prompt: “the forgotten creative project that you swore you’d never think about again”. 7 mins.

  David didn't pull out the dress with a thought to wearing it. Cramped into the attic, kneeling over the box with his hair bent against the ceiling beams, he didn't think at all.
  He pulled it out slowly, shoulder straps pinched between his fingers, and the soft sequin-laden material spilled gently into his lap. It puddled there, shiny and black like oil.
  He'd promised himself he wouldn't look at it again, but then if he'd really meant it, why had he locked it away? Why hadn't he burnt it, like he'd told his mother he would? Well, it was out of the box now, and the old bat was six feet in the ground. He fingered the hem, which was rough and unfinished. Maybe it was time to break out the sewing machine again.
  Maybe it was time.

2. Text prompt: “a mouse wielding a toothpick like a spear”. 5 mins.

  "I don't think that's the right one," David said, clutching at his box of machine needles as he looked up at Ella.
  She was sitting on the bookshelf, holding out a toothpick with that typical cheese-motivated look in her eye. When no cheese was forthcoming, she held the toothpick up more insistently, shaking it at him like a tiny Celtic warrior.
  He took a needle out of the box and held it up. "This is what I was looking for. See? Needle." He tapped the machine with his other hand. "For this."
  Ella dropped the toothpick and snatched the needle out of his hand, nibbling the blunt end briefly before holding it out for him to take again.
  He grinned. "Yeah, that's right girl," he said, and gave her a pinch of babybel.

3. Text prompt: “the conundrum of a 15 year old AAA battery”. 6 mins.

  David remembered buying the batteries. Down at the Brighton Pier on one of the many compulsory, miserable British summer getaways - at thirteen years old he'd bought it for his polaroid camera, and subsequently neglected to take any photos with it.
  Surprisingly, when he loaded it up now and clicked the button, a flash went off and it printed out a grey square. Huh.
  Unfortunately, the photo paper hadn't survived quite as well, so it didn't develop, and he took the progress photos on his phone instead and tucked them away in a hidden digital folder.
 The hem was all sewn up now, but after finishing it, he realised he was a bit bigger now than when he'd first started the project. He sat back, holding in a sigh, and held out a hand. "Ella. Fetch me the stitch unpicker, please."

4. Text prompt: “Literally the worst writing prompt in the world”. 9 mins.

There was no way I could fit this prompt to the story, so I went off-topic. Context: Brennin is the usual host, and Lyndon took over as temporary host in their absence. Act 1 refers to a meeting that starts 15 minutes before the write-in.

  Act 1 was starting soon, and Lyndon had not yet heard from Brennin. Twenty minutes to the start of the write-in. His hands shook as he gripped his mug of coffee - his third this morning. It'd been a long night, but soon he'd find out if it'd been worth it.
  Act 1 began. Bruce was an awesome and charismatic host as usual. Still no Brennin. Ten minutes to the write-in. He found he was shifting in his seat, and tried to keep still for the camera. It wouldn't do to arouse the suspicions of his fellow zoom participants.
  With five minutes to go, and still no sign of Brennin, he opened the second zoom room, his heart beating faster.
  Has he done it? Has he managed to get rid of Brennin? He allowed himself a single, brief grin before the first writers started to trickle in. Would they say anything? Refuse his rule? If they wouldn't bow to their new king, then this was all for nothing.
  Thankfully Nick - ever the ally - wore a trendy hat and distracted them into submission. The fools.
  Lyndon typed out the first prompt in the chat, satisfaction curling like a smug cat behind his mask of confusion and panic.
  The king is dead. Long live the king.

5. Text prompt: “and this is why the Washington Capitals are the worst team in the NHL”. 5 mins.

(I had to spend the first minute looking up what the NHL is, and who the Washington Capitals are.)

  David didn't want to try on the dress alone. Obviously, he couldn't have anyone here with him either. What would they think? So he called his mate Benny, voice chat only, and put him on speaker.
  "You should've seen the game," Benny was saying, as David put his first leg through the top of the dress, sequins glittering in his hands. "Worst shooting I ever saw, honestly."
  David put his other leg through and pulled the dress up to his hips. "Uh-huh," he said. "Worse than that other team. Who was that, last year?"
  "St Louis!" Benny huffed into the phone. "Don't even get me started."
  David shimmied it up to his armpits. "How do these teams get the funding, eh?" he asked. It didn't take much to keep Benny going.

(I forgot about Ella, his lil mouse friend. RIP)

6. Text prompt: “the host can’t think of a prompt”. 3 mins.

  Once the dress was on and zipped up, David forgot all about the NHL. Benny droned on about possession and shoot attempts, his voice muted in David's ears.
  He did not look pretty. He knew he wouldn't. He was ugly in a suit, ugly in jeans, and ugly in this dress, and yet... there was something... right about it.
  "David? Hey, David, you still there mate?"
  He jumped, turning to his phone on the dresser, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He couldn't think what to say. He needed to prompt Benny to keep talking, but all he could think was: I'm wearing a dress. I was always meant to be wearing a dress.

Aww, my lil cross-dresser is all grown up. *Wipes tear from eye*

January 10th – Story 11

1. Text prompt: “alarm”. 7 mins.

  Alarms are not particularly useful in an escape pod. I don't know what they think they're telling me that I don't already know.
  Careening out of control towards the least hospitable of the system's three planets, leaking oxygen from every panel while a two-tailed venomous space rat clings to the broken landing gear, I just think I could do without the alarms.

2. Image prompt: ripples and waves in a metallic surface. 3 mins.

  We hit cloud, and the pod shakes like a juicer, loud and turbulent. A second later the roaring stops and we break out again. Underneath us is a mosaic of dunes, glittering with metallic sand.
  The ground.

3. Text prompt: “placeholders”. 6 mins.

  With my doom rushing towards me, I can't help feeling anger, injustice. I wasn't supposed to be on this mission in the first place - I signed up as a placeholder for my cousin, and then he changed his mind.
  I slam my fists against the console and flip every switch in sight, and scream wordless screams, matching the rat's wails. It should be Aven here, not me. I should be at home, sitting in my armchair by the window, tapping my fingers on the plush, worn arm to the rhythm of Beethoven's Piano Sonata no 14.
  The hull's heat starts penetrating, making my skin itch. I want to take off my socks, but you can't do that in a space suit.
  I wish the ground were closer, and I wish it were four hundred thousand light years away.

4. Text prompt: “good chance”. 6 mins.

  There's a good chance I die instantly on impact. I hold on to that thought as the horror strips away everything else.
  I can't scream now. The pressure's too high. Sweat trails up my neck to my forehead, pooling at the top of my helmet. If I survive the impact, maybe it'll drown me.
  I squeeze my eyes shut, clench my jaw tight and grip the straps clipped around my chest. There's a good chance I die on impact...

5. Image prompt: a man holding a banana. 3 mins.

  As the oxygen runs out, my ears start ringing and I struggle to keep my head up. I'm pretty sure the man holding a banana is a hallucination. Doubly so when he speaks, and mum's voice comes out of his mouth: "your cousin got all nineties on his FV-12s. I hear he studies three hours every night. If you did even half of that-"
  I rediscover the ability to scream.

6. Text prompt: “begin the day”. 8 mins.

  I wake in a panic, drenched with sweat, and more so when I see that I'm already half an hour behind schedule for the morning. I take the system's quickest shower and call mum as I'm brushing my teeth. Her face shows up in the bathroom mirror, framed by her always perfect hair and half a dozen empty shampoo bottles. It's alright, she can't see them anyway.
  "I can't believe they accepted you for this," she starts. No hello, no good luck: just a reminder that I'm not good enough, even when I am. "The public folder recommends applicants with scores in the seventies at least."
  68, I got, and that was a miracle. "I guess no one applied," I say. "It's a boring mission in the arse-end of nowhere." Not good enough for Aven, I want to add, but I'm not a masochist.
  "Yes, well. You'd think they'd have some quality control. What if something goes wrong?"
  I think, then at least you'd be rid of me. Out loud, I say: "I'll be back in a month."

7. Image prompt. A girl laying face-down on cracked earth. 7 mins.

  I wake again, this time with my face pressed against hard, sun-baked clay. I can't feel the sun on my back, but I turn around expecting it to blind me, arm ready to shade my eyes. There's no sun though. The sky is blue and endless, the ground a flat expanse stretching in every direction.
  Where the hell am I?
  The last thing I remember is talking to mum- no, wait, wasn't there a man with a banana? A space rat? That's absurd... There's no space rats where I live.
  "Hello?" I call. The emptiness absorbs my voice. "I think I crash landed."
  After speaking the words, they confuse me. Crash landed? There's no debris anywhere. And why am I looking for it, anyway? Wasn't I just wish mum? I should be looking for her, not bits of scrap metal.

8. Text prompt: “ghost”. 5 mins.

  I see myself on the surface, and in the bathroom, and all the other moments of my life; the decision points that brought me here.
  A moment before the impact, with my eyes still shut tight, I see the ghosts of me, the people I've been, the ones I might have been if I'd studied harder, if I weren't such a pushover. They fan out all around me, their faces anguished, then they merge screaming into one: mum's face, mouth wide open, tears streaming down her cheeks.
  "If only you had been good enough."

I don’t have a complex, you have a complex.

January 17th – Story 12

After some discussions in a writing discord about the second person perspective, I decided to give it a shot. Mostly because I don’t like it, and doing things I don’t like is more likely to result in growth than doing more of the same all the time!

1. Text prompt: “cold outside”. 5 mins.

  The room where you drink your morning coffee is dark. The sun has risen, or at least it should have according to the chart at the bottom of the weather forecast app on your phone. The screen lights your face, your shoulders and the photo of Dan on the wall beside you.
  He smiles.
  You turn your eyes away from his face, to the window. Near the top, a diffuse glow struggles through the glass. Snow.

2. Text prompt: “forced apologies”. 8 mins.

  The front door won't budge - frozen shut - so you settle in for a day at home, in the darkness under snow drifts. Dan's photo is still smiling. Forever smiling, though the expression was rare back then. Seeing him like that every day makes it hard to remember the frowns and the tantrums.
  You make your coffee and write your morning pages, and spend an hour longer than necessary scrolling youtube shorts - which is to say, you spend an hour scrolling youtube shorts.
  At the end of the hour, he is still smiling. It's annoying. How dare he pretend, now?
  You rise and stride across the room, and grip the edges of the frame with all your fingertips. "I'm sorry," you say between gritted teeth, as you prise free the twenty command strips holding him to the wall. The velcro rips slowly, then all at once, and Dan goes flying across the room. "I'm sorry!"

3. Text prompt: “the end of the world as the moon knew it”. 7 mins.

  By nightfall, the snow has slowed. You manage to shove open the velux in the attic, causing a little landslide onto the puffy insulation under your feet.
  The world has disappeared. Where there were once rows of terraced houses, gardens, roads and litter-strewn parks, there is only white. A sea, an ocean, an endlessness of white. Hanging over it, like the dot in the yin looking down at the yang, sits the moon. It stares mournfully across the lost world.

4. Text prompt: “bright red”. 9 mins.

  You've not seen the red box since you shoved it up here three years ago. It's covered in dust, but just as bright underneath. Kneeling carefully across the only safe boards in the attic, you drag it out of the corner and unclip the plastic lid, revealing the photographs inside.
  Dan is not smiling in these ones, but you find yourself doing so as you lift out a few from the top of the pile. He really hated everything, didn't he? Skiing, fishing, hiking, football, chess and music. Food with spices. Food with herbs. Food that touched, or touched the side of the plate.
  One photograph catches your eye. The two of you together, like you always were - together, and two feet apart. Neither of you is smiling, but you remember the day fondly. It was a good day.
  You replace the lid and take the photo downstairs.

5. Text prompt: “once removed”. 3 mins.

  Once removed from its frame, the smiling photo looks small and fragile, and you can't believe you let something like this annoy you for three years. You replace it with the other, then press the frame back onto the crackling velcro strips and step back. There. Much better.

January 24th – Story 13

I like these write-ins because they give me a break from working on my novel, in a structured, time-boxed way. They’re creatively energising. 10/10 would recommend.

1. Text prompt: “my backyard”. 7 mins.

  "What's our there?" Sam asked, nodding at the frosted window over the dining table - or rather, the windowed door blocked by the dining table. I always forget it's there. Haven't stepped through it in three years, and I'm not sure I even have the key anymore.
  What's out there? I try to remember. Weeds and grass up to my elbows, hiding a trove of empty beer cans and cigarette butts. A cracked patio covered in scraggly yellow dandelions, ivy and moss. A chair, welded to the floor by rust. The remnants of my optimistic dreams: I'll buy a house with a garden; make it an allotment, with veggies and a sun deck and flowers for every season.
  I shrug. "Just the backyard."

2. Text prompt: “absolutely brilliant”. 5 mins.

  I settle Sam onto the sofa with a cup of tea, mostly to stop him from wandering around the house and asking me about all the renovation plans I had when I moved in five years ago.
  He slurps loudly at his mug, as I clear a pile of books and papers off my desk chair. "This is absolutely brilliant," he says, "where did you get it?"
  I'm confused for a moment, since I don't own anything brilliant so far as I'm aware, but he means the tea. It's just PG tips from the back of the cupboard, but I used to be into fancy teas so I can't admit to serving bagged to a guest. "I'll put some in a box for you to take home," I say, running through the loose leafs I still have somewhere.

3. Text prompt: “and she left”. 9 mins.

  Sam does an admirable job carrying the conversation, driving us neatly from topic to topic. How's work? Fine. How's the family? Good. Did you watch that tv show I linked you? Yeah, it was awesome.
  I got made redundant yesterday, I haven't spoken to my sister since she tried to stage an intervention, and I watched half an episode before defaulting to Star Trek Voyager - my fifth run through of the show in nine months.
  "How've you been with the whole Annie thing?" he asks. He knows it's a bad question because he fidgets with his empty mug as he says it.
  "I'm over it," I answer. "She left ages ago, so it'd be weird for me not to be over it by now."
  He laughs, and I laugh, both stilted and quiet, because I'm lying. He's nice enough not to point it out. "I like the wallpaper," he says instead. "Very 1970s."
  I nod, and smile as I pretend to take a sip of my cold tea. It's authentic 70s paper, peeling at the edges after fifty years of service.

4. Image prompt: a pod of peas, with one red pea. 4 mins.

  "You don't have to be on your own, you know," he says, coat in his arms as we stand in the dim hallway.
  "I know."
  He doesn't get it, but that's okay. He's a universal pea - everywhere he goes, with everyone he meets, he's making pods. He doesn't know what it's like being the rotten one, the red among the green, ruining every room you enter.

5. Text prompt: “uprooted”. 7 mins.

  Relief washes through me as I shut the door between us. I love Sam, I really do, but it's difficult existing next to someone trying so hard, when I'm clearly not.
  I put the mugs by the sink, to be washed at some point in the next three weeks, and lie on the sofa with my legs over the arm. My mind crawls back to the backdoor. Once, I imagined hosting guests out there. Now I don't even look out the window.
  I turn on the TV as a distraction and open Star Trek. The soothingly familiar, hopeful music of the intro fills the room. I don't need to explore the back yard when I have new life, new civilizations right here.
  But I can't let go of the thought. A mere three episodes later, I can't bare it anymore, and walk to the door. I move the dining table out of the way, legs squealing against the tiles, and find the key already in the lock, which explains why I haven't seen it in so long.

My intent was to get to the uprooting of weeds in the back yard, but I didn’t make it that far. Sorry, unnamed character, no development for you!

6. Text prompt: “didn’t get a cat”. 4 mins.

  My hand hovers over the handle. If I turn it, if I go out there and see with my own eyes the mess, I won't be able to live again in ignorance. I won't be able to ignore it and be depressed just about the inside of my house. I'll have the outside to be depressed about too.
  I swallow, step back and slide the table back into place. This is why I didn't get a cat, I think. Too much responsibility.
  I return to Captain Janeway and her fictitious problems, so much bigger and more important than the ones plaguing my little life in my little house.

…

Man, January blues have been big this year, huh.

January Journal

The Goals

Alright! I stated my 2024 writing goals in December, the currently relevant parts of which are to write a blog post every month (hi!) and to complete the first draft of my book by the end of March. Seeing as the blog post is right here, let’s focus on the book writing part!

What do I need to have achieved by the end of January in order to be on-track?

As part of the book planning process, I break up my outlined novel into tickets on a JIRA board, each comprised of 1 evening of focused work (3-5 hours). This book is made of 46 tickets – about 15 per month. Completing 15 tickets in January would seem like a solid goal, but I know that problems are going to come up while writing. Some scenes are fully fleshed out in the zero draft and only need writing up nicely, while others are a bare few paragraphs describing what the character needs to do or learn in that scene. Since the book is about bards, many also involve writing poems, songs and stories for the characters to recite. On top of that, I work full time and would burn out very quickly if I was writing every single day. Therefore I would like to front-load what I can and get the first 20 tickets done.

I’m starting January with a 24,000 word zero draft, of which 6,000 words (half of Act 1) are written in first draft form already. I expect the full first draft to end up around 70,000 words, which leaves me with 64,000 left to write, divided into 3… Just over 21k words per month. In line with the above, I’d like to write 25,000 words.

This should take me up to the pinch point leading to the midpoint.

So!

At the end of January, the first draft should have 31,000+ words. I should have completed 20+ tickets on the board, and I should be more than halfway between the start of Act 2 and the Midpoint.

The Results

Drumroll….

I completed 22 tickets.

I wrote 28,000 words, bringing the first draft to 34,000 words so far.

I wrote up to the moment just before the midpoint, so I am roughly half way through the book!

Goals smashed, woo!

And a breakdown from week to week, if you like:

Week 1: 1st to 8th

3 tickets completed

5,300 words written

Finished Act 1 and the first scene of Act 2

Week 2: 8th to 15th

5 tickets completed

12,100 words written

Got 2/3 of the way to the midpoint

Week 3: 15th to 22nd

5 tickets completed

6,300 words written

Got 3/4 of the way to the midpoint

Week 4: 22nd to 29th

4 tickets completed

4,300 words written

Reached the midpoint!

Miscellaneous

For odds and ends relating to writing and life.

I finally replaced the ink ribbon on my typewriter. A pretty 1962 Beaumont Script named Roger, he has moved house with me six times over the last decade, with the new ribbon sellotaped to his side so it doesn’t get lost. It was my longest-standing to-do list item, procrastinated on for over ten years, while I waited for another chore to come along with a stronger urge to procrastinate. That time finally came as I was working on Chapter 13. Or rather, not working on it. I played video games, watched tv shows, read books, drove an hour away to the reptile shop to get a springtail colony for my millipede enclosure, bought POSCA markers to draw on the walls with – the bathroom door now sports a life size sheep in a top hat to watch me bathe – fixed the broken hose on the hoover, pruned a tree… A vast collection of Very Important Tasks.

Anyway, the point is I can use my typewriter now. Which is why I put him back in his box under the sofa, and have not seen him since.