January 2021 Challenge - Build a Writing Habit!

Day 13 - 444 words.

I spent most of yesterday thinking my cat 13-year old cat, Frank, was going to be put down. That morning he threw up a lot and had very runny poop. He couldn't even walk in a straight line. All of this was out of nowhere. He had been fine the day before. My mom said if it was another kidney stone or, she didn't think he would survive an operation and would ask for him to he put down. As it turns out he had food poisoning and would totally fine after the vet gave him an IV. I cried so much yesterday. I was so scared I would loose the best cat I ever had. He's fine now, though.

Kara - Ooh! I love short stories.

ChaseJxyz - Your bird sound like my sister's cat who will walk around the keyboard, but stand in front of your screen to get attention.

Layla - Now I want a bagel...

Ptero - Thank you. This story has also been coming out super quickly, so that's good

Woolly - Yes, I love worldbuilding and character introductions.

Magnus - Yay! for the seemingly endless creative burst!

April - Some of those hardback books can get expensive. I bought a MG hardback for 23$ and a MG paperback for like 8$.

Daniel -My avatar is supposed to be an Alligator Creature. If you look close enough you will see he's wearing a gold and black watch.

Day 13

Added words

DRESS HER IN CHAMELEON - Glanced through 6 chapters.


Morgan - WTG 548!

Woolly - Nothing like that groove. Good job!

Layla - Double rewrite!

April - Another great word count. Woot!

Woolly: Ha, thank you Bring on the edits!

Magnus: Awesome work. I tend to leave world building for the end, too. That way I can only put in what I need, rather than feeling compelled to chuck in all this cool stuff I’ve thought of.

Pterofan: Nice 329.

Layla: Yay rewrites! Yay bagels!

Chase: Nice work—that’s a lot of resolutions!

karasunoyashi: Nice job editing.

Second: Aw, glad to hear your pusskins is okay!

Cindyt: Nice work!

Finished Chap 13 and started Chap 14 today. I’m sitting at 2.6k but want to push over the 3k mark. I’m hoping an evening gin will give me the required focus

Today was really just a read-through of Chapter 27 again, to double check the edits from the past couple days. Spent a couple hours on that, tweaking, and now it's done until the next full read-through of the manuscript.

I've got some excerpts to critique and then tomorrow onwards to Chapter 31, which has its own set of issues.

Yes, I got completely thrown off and distracted by world crap over the last week.

But today, I wrote 600 words, and may even keep some of them, whee!

Day 13 - roughly a page of flash.

That was the first time this month I had to resort to flash. Like Magnus, I have an editing job that sometimes takes up time and energy. This morning's writing time got eaten up by needing to reconcile my checkbook with the bank statement. I hate math. Tonight's session will be in front of the TV, possibly with Hell's Kitchen in the background. If Gordon Ramsay can't motivate me, nothing can.

SM - oh my gosh! I'm so glad Kitty's okay.

Layla - I thought Okies were from Muscogee.

Chase - congrats on the resolutions . (ps - what kind of bird?)
kara - congrats on that editing (I go out of my way for good food - yolo)
Oh Moon - I'm so glad to hear your kitty is ok. Please give him some hugs and cuddles from me. & congrats on the 444
Cindy, congrats on the words & the glancing
Dang April, you clean up as usual. (Gin? remember that cucumber!)
woolly - excellent!
ap - good to see you and congrats on that 600
Magnus - hope it's a good day, regardless
Ptero - Yah probably that's it. I just know they're not from Oklahoma where they belong! Congrats on that flash




Day 14


WIP 1) editing WIP 2) editing
R/SC - did the dishes when I got home
BP/$$ - job 12 hours; One housemate email

Day 14

Word Count 99 bottles of beer on the wall/99 bottles of beer/take one down, pass it around/99 bottles of beer on the wall

Research - Do you italicize books of the Bible in an attribution list? No. And you always use abbreviations. I did cap the titles as I did for Auld Long Syne, etc.

DRESS HER IN CHAMELEON - Glanced through 3 chapters. Updated my Attribution page.


Layla - Nice editing!

April - Nice 2.6k. I tried to drink a keg of gin once upon a time. I don’t drink anymore.

I want so bad to read Stephen King's The Gingerbread Girl, but it's audio only, and I'm deaf. BOO!

Day 14: Closed 4 things, +201 words. I wrote maybe 2 paragraphs and it made me think about what various peoples think about birbnobyl; I know what actually happened, but that's not necessarily what people believe. What I currently have doesn't really align with how I currently have the main deity presented (why would she cause this to happen? how do people interpret her decision to cause such a terrible event to take place?). So my task for tomorrow is to get that straightened out.

Layla: He's a cockatiel, which are the small grey parrots with the yellow face and crest and red spots on their cheeks. They look like Pikachus in that way. We had a minor earthquake today and he didn't even notice it!

Day 14 - 1,565 words. I finished up the 1st story out of 8 in the vampire one (Protect the Sunpire). I had a blast writing the story! I guess that's because I don't get to dive into supernatural creatures much. I usually write SF, so it was a fun change.

ChaseJxyz - I don't own a cockatiel, but I laughed when you said that they look like Pikachus.

To everyone who was glad my cat was okay - Frank's even perkier than usual. I guess that's because of all the fluids they put in him.

Day 15- 250 words
Chase- Good job on the 201 words.

Ptero- Good luck with the writing.

Magnus- I hope you can finish the editing quickly tomorrow.

Ap123- Congratulations on the 600 words.

April- Congrats on the 2.6k words.

Second- glad the cat is doing better and congrats on the 444 words.

Day 14, because it didn't post yesterday: 515 words

April: Nice wordcount! You can worry about revision later!
Woollybear: Snazzy! Sounds like it's going well!
Magnus: Yay writing! And learning!
Pterofan: Nice work! Sounds like a fun scene coming up!
Layla: Yay progress!
Chase: Nice work! That's a lot of things resolved!
karasunoyashi: Yay negative words! XD
The Second Moon: Aww, kitty! Glad he's okay! And yay words!
Cindyt: Yay words! And glances!


Day 15: 502 words

April: Very nice!
Woollybear: Nice work! Onwards!
ap123: Yay words! Welcome back!
Pterofan: Go you! A page is a lot, for flash!
Layla: Yay progress!
Cindyt: 99 words? That's something! And research and glances, too!
Chase: Interesting! Good luck sorting it out!
The Second Moon: Nice work!
karasunoyashi: Yay words!

Day 15--Today I woke up with an idea for a twisted fairy tale type thing and I had to get it down. Wrote 1100 words. Is it flash? Is it something that should be fleshed out? Something that should be tossed and never mentioned again? I don't know, but there you have it.

Hope everyone is having a great day today!

Woolly: Great job tweaking!

ap123: Totally understandable! 600 is great

Magnus: It’s fine to take a day off, especially if you have lots of other stuff on.

Pterofan: Nice page. Hope Gordon works his magic!

Layla: Woop woop for editing

Cindyt: Ha! Yeah, that would put one off the stuff.

Chase: Nice work!

Second Moon: Awesome work!

karasunoyashi: Great 250.

Morgan: Great double 500!

ap123: Gotta follow that muse!

Was so knackered today but managed to get 2289, mostly cos I’m writing the exciting climactic chapters (oh, when I say writing, I mean butchering). Can’t wait for revisions!

Day 14 - only about a quarter of a page longhand, done while the TV was on. Couldn't help it; there were some really exciting matches on Battlebots. I seriously need to rethink my priorities.

This morning I got hit with one of those "your computer is locked" scams. Out of nowhere the screen turns red and starts flashing and this voice tells me my computer is infected with malware and I have to call tech support immediately. I've had this happen once or twice over the years while at the library. I did now what I did then: pulled the plug, waited ten seconds, then started it up again. It's working fine. I'm currently running a scan to see if my anti-virus program can find anything. And how's your day been going?

Cindy = we used to have a restaurant chain here called "99" - 'Yours and mine at the 99' Congrats on the days work!
Chase, congrats on that progress. Ah - a sweet little bird give him a scratch on the head from me (Last year I fell down the youtube foul-mouthed parrot-hole (well, cocatoo mostly) I'm very interested in birds.) (ps who cares about earthquakes when you have wings)
Moon - you are cleaning up! Great 1565!
kara, congrats on the 201
Morgan, nice 515 and 502
ap - way to 1.1K!
April, sweet 2289!
Ptero, congrats on that 1/4 page!




Day 15


WIP 1) editing WIP 2)editing
R/SC - ballet!
BP/$$ - job 10 hours

Day 15

Added Words

DRESS HER IN CHAMELEON - Glanced through 4 chapters.


Morgan - YaY 515 and 505 words!

Layla - Grats on the things

April - Almost falling through a picture window didn’t help either.

Pterofan: Battlebots sounds a lot like Robot Wars, which ran here in the 90s. I understand the appeal!

Layla: Woo editing and ballet!

Cindyt: Yay words!

I finished Chap 15 today, adding just over 600 words. This draft really is brutal, but I hope the story itself is okay … I guess I’ll find out when I read through next week :/

Day 15 - 1,422. I finished up a short story in Stories From Eotu: Vol. 1. However this one is only around 2,000 words long. Usually, I try to make it to my stories least 4,000 words, but this one felt right being this short. I even let my sister read it who said I shouldn't add more.


April - I feel you on being scared to read a rough draft. Once, I wrote a short story when I was starting to get the stomach flu. I felt like my writing on that story was horrible. I haven't checked back on it because I'm afraid my illness effected my writing, but I'm going to have to if I want to edit it.

Ptero - Oh-no! I hope your computer is fine. That's like my biggest fear ever and that's why I put my writing on Google Docs.

Kara - I'm glad my cat's okay, too.

Day 16- I wrote 700 words today. Found out my area will be going into second semi-lockdown. It won't affect my work this time but my kendo practices will be put on hold for a couple of weeks.

Morgan- I hate when it doesn't post. Good job getting 500 words in each day.

Ap123- Congrats on the 1100 and story idea.

April- That is a great total for any day let alone one where you tired. The 600 is good too!

Ptero- God thinking with the virus. I haven't had one in years thankfully. The last one I got just deleted the system files without warning and killed the computer.

Second- Congratulations on the 1,422 words and finishing up the short story. Sometimes shorter stores need love too.

Day 16: 530

ap123: Nice! I hope you can do something with it!
April: Very nice wordcount!
Pterofan: Some work is always better than none! Hope your computer's okay!
Layla: Yay progress!
Cindyt: Yay words!
April: Nice job finishing a chapter! I hope it's okay, but if not, you can always revise!
The Second Moon: You are rocking these wordcounts! Very nice!
karasunoyashi: Nice work! And good luck with the semi-lockdown.

Day 15 - about 3/4 page longhand, flash

Spent the day working on an assignment. Let's see how much I can write after dinner.

Second Moon - Stories are as long or short as they decide to be. There isn't much we can do about it except edit and polish.

Whoa. Lost a day.

AP, Magnus, Pterofan, Cindy, Chase, April, Morgan, Kara, Moon, well done on everything.

I've been poking at Chapter 31 for the past ten hours, interspersed with yard work and some writing sprints on another site. It's a 4K chapter (should split it) and a mess, but I can't decide why. I think because the viewpoint is once again going on an internal journey while events swirl about her.

But, it's a bit better for the added interiority (about 1K words throughout) ... and I've never been one for action figures so i dunno. I think I need this interiority. Our viewpoint does step up to save the world at the end, but not sure the path there works.

I might simply need to cut big chunks. I will sleep on it.

This coming week is all about getting chapter 31 in shape. We shall see.