31 Comments
User's avatar
Etti's avatar

But that’s the thing about missing cats and missing people: even if months pass with no leads, you can never fully give up. You’re always one ear tilted up, listening for their return.

Expand full comment
Linda Goin's avatar

"No matter what I hoped for, she [my mother] would make sure it wouldn't happen."

Expand full comment
Linda Lefler's avatar

I've had little practice cries every day this week but today it all comes out, tears and snot and clenching and sobbing.

Expand full comment
Rebecca Trotter's avatar

7070 words

"He brought a gun to the dinner table. This wasn't unheard of, but it was always a bit unnerving for everyone else at the table."

Expand full comment
Qingqing's avatar

I'm a little terrified to re-read my draft. Usually I just pick off at the last line or scene, but here's a line I picked out while skimming:

Mrs. Li ushers Mei out of the room but pauses to shake my hand. Her skin is buttery-soft. I’m scared it will melt in my sweaty palms.

Currently I'm just over 44k but I intend to reach 50k by Monday. This challenge has been such a gift! Thank you, thank you!

Expand full comment
Stephanie Veronica McFadden's avatar

Only about 700 words away from hitting 50k!! Might finish tonight, might wait for tomorrow. Here's 2 sentences I wrote today that I liked:

"And now here he was, a product of all the moments and decisions and words and visions of every day until now. Wasn’t it dizzying what made up a person?"

Expand full comment
S. O. Sebastian's avatar

Hit 50k a few days ago and have been happily continuing to write! I swear my book is a YA fantasy that’s mostly fun and comedic, but my favorite line(s) happened to be the most unsettling :/

“There are wolves,” the child said, wiping the front of her shirt and leaving behind a crimson smear. Her hands dripped with the stuff, glossy and red like she had dipped them in a wellspring of blood. “There are wolves in the forest.”

Congratulations to everyone else in the comment section who’s been working so hard on their projects. Reading everyone’s lines has been a lot of fun!

Expand full comment
Rebecca Trotter's avatar

Love your handling of dialogue.

Expand full comment
S. O. Sebastian's avatar

Thank you!

Expand full comment
Emily Care's avatar

"Callum brought flowers to Cailean three times before she realized that he was courting her."

Hit 25k today and very happy with this start.

Expand full comment
Becca Behnke's avatar

The gauntlet was a daily experience, dunked by the heavy hand of propriety.

Expand full comment
Casey Shapack's avatar

I was always chasing the stay-even looseness of a two-drink buzz, but I often overdid it and quickly slid from charming to obnoxious before I knew what had happened.

Expand full comment
What Else Can I Do's avatar

I’m not going to hit 50K this month. I’m hovering around 40K and I didn’t get anything done the last two days. But I’m going to keep going! Thank you for this challenge.

Expand full comment
First Draft November's avatar

40k is amazing! 👏

Expand full comment
What Else Can I Do's avatar

Now that I’ve spliced my multiple documents back into a continuous story, I see I am below 40K— more like 35K.

I’m still proud of it. But clearly I have more work to do.

Happy December writing to everyone who hung out here!

Expand full comment
What Else Can I Do's avatar

“But Matthias had seen his own reflection enough— had heard older women through the years exclaim over him enough— to know why the dimple in Lysonne’s face was so jarring and yet so familiar. It matched the one in his own.”

Expand full comment
Justin Nicholes's avatar

Here's line one: Siying Zhang had paid for an aisle seat in comfort, but the plane had been delayed in Beijing, passengers had to be reshuffled, and she ended up two rows in front of her husband, Jack, in a middle seat on the right-hand side of a Boeing.

Expand full comment
R.T. Ernst's avatar

I've got to 66 pages written by hand and no clue about the word count. I'm over the moon! Thank you for holding this space. I loved showing up and I'm setting an intention to continue to play.

"It was as if something had broken open and finally she could see the world for what it truly was."

Expand full comment
Emily's avatar

"Imagine her surprise (and horror) when she opened the pantry and, aside from a paltry row of Campbell's soups and Kraft Mac & Cheese, the rest of the shelves were filled with Virginia Woolf, Dickinson, Patricia Highsmith, the Collected Works of Shakespeare, and a meticulously organized set of Babysitter's Club books numbers 1 through 22."

Expand full comment
irisp0316's avatar

The magic of the night and first love and wanting so desperately had put me under a spell, and I wanted to stay here, with her forever.

Expand full comment