amand_r

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

(Another quote from Elizabeth McCracken.)

"Any writer’s ideal craft manual must be bespoke, like a suit, made to measure. Write a manifesto aimed only at your own work without worrying whether it applies to or offends anybody else in the world. Address, in your silent heart, punctuation, plot, character, all your picayune concerns and grandiose plans, all the things that made you want to be a writer. Make it living, an armor-clad list that might change. It will be dearer to you than any other guide."

— Elizabeth McCracken, A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction (HarperCollins, 2025).

My Check-In:

Alibi sentence! An angry one! Adulting, gah. It's also why I'm behind on comments. 8-(

Today should be better!

Tally
( Days 1-9 )

Day 10:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

— E. L. Doctorow

My Check-In:

Neverending Project! It was a soothing break from the adulting, at least. 8-/

Tally
( Days 1-8 )

Day 9:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

"No process is wrong that leads to a first draft of a book."

— Elizabeth McCracken, A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction. HarperCollins, 2025.

My Check-In:

Neverending Project is neverending. ;-)

Tally
( Days 1-7 )

Day 8:

annavere,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

— Stephen King

My Check-In:

Alibi sentence. I've been doing some adulting, mostly because another member of the family isn't. Sigh

Tally
( Days 1-6 )

Day 7:

annavere,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

dswdiane,

luzula,

ofmonstrouswords,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

"Imaginary worlds are the best worlds."

— Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez (Substack note)

My Check-In:

I wrote a drabble! Whoo-hoo! 8-)

Tally
( Days 1-6 )

Day 6:

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

ofmonstrouswords,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

ysilme

Day 7: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

"Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion — that’s plot."

— Leigh Brackett

My Check-In:

A bit of work on the Neverending Project, and some poking at drabbles. The prompts are a lot of fun. But I'm out of practice!

Tally
( Days 1-4 )

Day 5:

annavere,

ysilme

Day 6: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

raine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Oops, I got interrupted when responding to check-ins on Day 3 and forgot to finish them. So some of my comments will be out of synch, sorry!

Quote of the Day:

"If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences."

— Eric Hoffer

My Check-In:

More Neverending Project… All the prompts people offered sound intriguing, thanks! And

dswdiane, the Princess and the Pea on The Couch is hilarious. I've already got several lines for that! 8-)

Tally

Day 1:

ysilme

Day 2:

ysilme

Day 3:

ysilme

Day 4:

annavere

trobadora

Day 5: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Switching to a Highlander icon (see my check-in below). Hope I don't confuse anybody! 8-)

Quote of the Day:

"But you know what? A lousy draft proves nothing. Rough drafts are rough — everybody's are. Being a writer isn't like being a musician. You don't have to get it right every day. The wonderful thing about being a writer is, you only have to get it right once. That's all anyone will ever see. The only bad draft is the one that doesn't get finished."

— Lev Grossman, The Halfway Point: A Pep Talk on his Substack, Last Stop Corbenic.

My Check-In:

More editing and re-arranging and Etc. Etc. Etc. on the Neverending Project.

But, inspired by

dswdiane, I was looking at some old Highlander drabbles I never posted, which smushed HL with fairy tales and folktales. So far I've got The Frog Prince, Goldilocks & the Three Bears, Hansel & Gretel, Cinderella and Rapunzel. I'd like to write five more to make an even 1000 words. I could use some prompts. Anyone have any old folk tales or legends you'd like to see in the HL-verse? 8-)

Tally

Day 1:

ysilme

Day 2:

ysilme

Day 3:

ysilme

Day 4: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

resonant

To The Words
by W.S. Merwin

When it happens you are not there

oh you beyond numbers
beyond recollection
passed on from breath to breath
given again
from day to day from age
to age
charged with knowledge
knowing nothing

indifferent elders
indispensable and sleepless

keepers of our names
before ever we came
to be called by them

you that were
formed to begin with
you that were cried out
you that were spoken
to begin with
to say what could not be said

ancient precious
and helpless ones

say it

Quote of the Day:

RE: yesterday's quote,

sylvanwitch mentioned that as a tween she worried about the way she was always describing things in her head as they happened, until she realized it meant she was a writer. 8-) That made me think of another of my favorite quotes along the same lines, so I'm reprising this from an old WED post from 2022:

"Your job as a writer is making sentences.
Most of your time will be spent making sentences in your head.
In your head.
Did no one ever tell you this?"

Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing. Knopf Doubleday, 2012.

My Check-In:

More work on the Neverending Project — I made a lot of progress yesterday, meaning I jettisoned a bunch of stuff (repetitious & duplicate info). Gone!* Whee!

*Well, you know, I mean, backed up… ;-)

Tally

Day 1:

ysilme

Day 2:

ysilme

Day 3: china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

Quote of the Day:

"I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing."

— Shirley Jackson

My Check-In:

I'm working on a large-ish nonfiction project with a lot of moving parts, and have been editing & revising it for several weeks; so I did more of that yesterday. I'll do more of it today, too!

Tally

Day 1:

china_shop

Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!

ysilme

Day 2: