Hiya, writers’n’frenz!
DailyKosWritingMonth starts in three weeks, January 1. Did you know that SensibleShoes’ first-ever Write On! was January 1, 2009? So, Write On!’s about to celebrate its 17th birthday. Can haz driver’s license!! Strawbale will be diarist. Anyone with any kind of writing, not fiction alone — term papers, workplace projects, knitting patterns, poetry, memoirs, that belated annual letter-to-everyone! — will be welcome to sign up for a month of mutual encouragement and support in making progress. You don’t have to vow to complete anything, just set whatever kind of goal that works for you, and we’ll cheer each other on :)
“Get your ass in the chair. Seriously. You won't know if you have a book in you until you start to write it. You have to sit down and start writing and do it every damn day. Don't go back and reread or edit until you're at least 20,000 words in. Just keep going and keep moving the story for you. It sounds terrifying but it [works].—Jo Piazza, journalist, podcaster, and author of 13 books
The following is a comment from the thread of SenSho’s first ever Write On! that’ll be the basis of our writing challenge/practice for the evening:
smileycreek —Jan 01, 2009 at 11:07:29 AM
A friend and I used to play a writing game
as kids. For some reason we called it Orange Mountain. It was like a Perils of Pauline serial....I'd start a story, write the main character into a corner, then mail it to my friend. She'd bail the character out of the dilemma and put her into a new one and mail it back. We could do this for months on end. It was just sheer fun.
<big>CHALLENGE:</big>
- POST A COMMENT IN THREAD sketching out a protagonist in a pickle. No need for anything about that character at all, and not even anything more about the setting than shows the predicament.
- Then go look for someone else’s such comment, and reply to it, inventing something about that protag character that maybe might help the protag get outa the pickle. BUT NO MORE THAN THAT!
- Then go find a reply-comment where others have done those 2 steps, and write the protag’s escape … into ANOTHER pickle!
- Repeat steps 2 or/and 3! :)
<big>Electric pickle.</big> h/t EngineerX
While you’re thinking about the challenge, here’s some bits of news from around the bookworld:
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- From Literary Hub: A children's book press had to tell Pete Hegseth to not depict their turtle committing murder. CLICK HERE and Canadian children’s publisher Kids Can Press denounced U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Franklin the Turtle in a mock book cover referencing the Trump administration’s boat strikes in the Caribbean, the Hill reports.
- From Mother Jones: AI Is Coming for Your Toddler's Bedtime Story. CLICK HERE
- From 100 Scope Notes: The Most Unconventional Children's Books of 2025. CLICK HERE
- Inkluded Confronts Publishing’s Diversity Problem Through public programming and a tuition-free publishing course, the nonprofit seeks to address the knowledge gaps that have historically stood between some BIPOC communities and a career in the book business. more
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Indie Publishers Support Marginalized Authors PW spoke with independent publishers that champion diversity—including several children's imprints—about how they're weathering the current political climate and facing the challenges ahead.
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TheConversation AI generated images can exploit how our mind works to fool us; here’s how to spot them [whether in children’s books, any kinds of bookcovers, advertisements, television commercials, political messaging, social media...]
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Congratulations to the 2025 Five Booklife Prize Contest Finalists in the categories of General Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Romance/Erotica, Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror, and YA/Middle Grade.
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The Booklife Prize Mystery Finalist on Writing, Research, and More.
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From the Editor's Desk Conner Reed is the Mystery/Thriller reviews editor at Publishers Weekly. He was the arts and culture editor at Portland Monthly magazine, and his writing has appeared in Artforum, Eater, and Little White Lies. Reed served as the judge for the BookLife Prize Fiction Contest, selecting The Imperfect Hand of Fate by Wade Monk as the finalist for the Mystery/Thriller category. Reed spoke to us about the characteristics that make a mystery or thriller truly remarkable.
What draws you to mysteries and thrillers as a reader and editor?
I’m a sucker for a good plot twist, of course. And I like that the genre’s desire to shock and surprise makes for a lot of unstable narratives. My tastes tend toward more character-driven stories, where readers closely follow the effect of some tragedy or dangerous event on a fleshed-out person or group of people.
What qualities make a mystery and thriller stand out to you from the very first pages?
Books that avoid cliché by highlighting an unusual setting from page one grab my attention. So does good use of in media res. Right off the bat, I want either punchy dialogue or evocative language that stays on the right side of florid…
….speaking of which, our December 25 WriteOn! is about Words of Hue in a World of Heat.
BTW, if you can’t get access to BookLife articles via the links, try going to the PublishersWeekly site to sign up for free emails from PW, and that should do the job._______________________________
h/t jrfrog
and finally
<big>big>Brilliant and grimly funny article in the </big> NewYorkTimes Maganzine<big> on Chatbot writing style. </big></big> It includes the unnerving mention that people in high places and low are increasingly talking and writing like AI! The article’s author identifies the patterns right out in front of god and everybody, stunningly clear.
This article was free when I saw it, but if you find it puts up a paywall now, plunk the URL into the searchbar at Archive.Today
It’s a must-read!
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Okay, back to the predicament game :)
Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (8 pm Eastern, 5 pm Pacific) until it isn’t.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors (at FB their last post seems to be in October 2023) Absolute Write, Critters.org, and/or Writer Beware.
.<big>Click Fiction Works-in-Progress for tonight’s and earlier diaries of fiction chapters, scenes, and excerpts by DK storytellers, AND for the diarist schedule comment in the most recent post there.</big>
WRITE ON — sign up at the schedule comment in tonight’s thread here.
Dec 4 — dconrad
Dec 11 — mettle fatigue
Dec18 — strawbale
Dec 25 — mettle fatigue
Jan 1, 2026 — strawbale
Jan 8 — Aashirs nani dconrad
Jan 15 mettle fatigue
Jan 22 — Aashirs nani
Jan 29 —
Feb 5 —
Feb 12 — Aashirs Nani
Feb 19 —
Feb 26 —
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