1-Million-Words

And just like that, it's no longer Monday... sorry, folks, but thems the breaks, right? Monday was pretty flat-out with work, and I was on dinner duty after that, and yesterday was no better! The great thing is that I finished one piece of complicated work yesterday - after having it on the go for well over a month (most of my work is 1-2 week jobs, and sometimes only a day)! You can see why I was thrilled to have it done AT LAST. I had begun to think it was never going to end! Anyway, today was supposed to be a nice bit of straight-forward work that I could finish in one day, but there was an unforeseen complication that I needed to get advice on... That has meant there is a bit of a work-around to be completed, which involves another area of my department, and I have to wait for them to do their bit before I can finish my bit, so that's dragging it out to tomorrow at least. Oh well, at least there's a solution that's doable!

And enough of my woes... how is YOUR week going? hopefully "work" (whatever it does or doesn't entail for you) has been productive, and you are getting WORDS in!

I have not done words yet again, though I did manage to make some icons a couple of weekends ago. They are lounging around, unposted, waiting for me to find time to do just that. BUT I will be counting them at least! And no, the count for April is not done yet *sigh*, but I will get to that, and another Original Fic post, soon! That, in case you missed it, is our current long challenge that runs to the end of May! Join us - we're all having fun thinking about original stories, if not actually writing any! ;-)

Big Buddies, you should be at the 22% mark of your monthly goal about now. How is that looking for you? Need any help or encouragement?

The Daily Count challengers need a mention - WOOHOO! You are all going great guns!

Your Flash Challenge for today is: "I could easily change my mind about you." courtesy of Carly Simon (10 points to anyone who can name the song!)

What else? Oh, prompts galore! Check back over the last week for ALL THE THINGS! You know by now what they are, right? All the daily words, the weekly challenges, the weekend challenge! Anything else I missed? Bound to be - so make free with our wonderful comm, and create from any and all of the prompts you like!

And that's me. I'm about to keel over, exhausted, so I think I'd better fall down before I fall down. *waves*

So here we are, another week gone by already! I am writing this from the South Office of work on a nice Tuesday morning, although rain is threatening for later - I won't complain as we do need it! The last couple of years we've had plenty of rain, but 2025 is starting out a lot drier and you can tell - the grass everywhere is so brown! I just want it to end by Thursday as my family and I are off to the beach for a few days, so we'd like it to be sunny! I hope the weather is as you'd like it where you are.

How are you all doing, anyway? Our Big Buddies should be at around 39% of their goal for the month - I hope you're all there, or close to it! You still have plenty of time to make up the words, anyway. Our current Long Challenge is the WIP Push, so don't be afraid to dust off something old and start adding words (or stitches! ;-)). It'll be around till the end of Feb, so you still have a couple of weeks to participate. I'll hopefully get a new post up soon with a couple more prompts for anyone interested.

Daily Count challenge people are continuing apace! YOU GUYS ROCK! I love seeing how you're all doing, even if I don't comment!

If you need extra prompts, don't forget to scroll back over the last week's entries, or check out the tags for any of the regular items that you love! We have so many good prompts in amongst them all!

Now, your flash challenge for today is: Big & bright! I'm sure you know it's Chinese New Year (CNY) around this time of year, and we are just going into Year of the Snake - I work with a few people from China and others with Chinese ancestry, so we are being treated to a morning tea by them shortly, and I am so looking forward to all the yummy food! I chose today's flash challenge because if you know anything about CNY, there's one thing it will definitely be, and that is big and bright! You don't have to write about CNY unless you want, but I'm sure you can find a few words about the prompt, or maybe just make some pretty graphics! Link or post your fill in a comment so we can all enjoy! No word/graphic minimum or maximum!

if you haven't checked in on the recent posts with the new Long Challenge (LC) and Weekend Challenge (WC) schedules, please do so, especially if you are hosting, so you can be sure the dates I have given you will work! Even if you're not involved, the LC post will be of interest if any of the upcoming challenges look like ones you want to be involved with! You can mark them in your calendar a bit early so you can start to prep beforehand, if you want, or just so you know when they're kicking off to roll up your sleeves and get into them!

And I think that's all I have! Let's be creative out there! ;-)

Yesterday (Monday) was Labour Day in NZ, so I had a glorious long weekend - the first public holiday since June, which in these parts symbolises spring finally starting to turn towards summer! I am so ready for it! And of course, Christmas is now less than two months away, which means there's things to do to be ready for a relaxing Christmas Day at our place! This year we're aiming to tidy up the patio and get a gazebo-cover type thing we can set up over the picnic table, as it inevitably rains on the big day, and if not, it'll be sunny out so we may need shade there, anyhow. So there's a bit to do before December!

Apart from all that, today being Tuesday already is a huge bonus! I'm already looking forward to Friday! What I do need to do is set up a post about the Advent Challenge, which will be upcoming. I know we have Swap of Joy getting under way, but this is separate and is not for a particular recipient, and posting occurs in the 24 days heading up to Christmas, whether or not you celebrate! OK, I will make that my mission for later today!

How are our Big Buddies doing? You should be at about 93% of your monthly goal by now. How is it looking?

There is plenty of inspiration in our usual posts - so scroll on back, or look out individual tags to see what rocks your boat! Our current long challenge is Bingo, which is always a ton of fun! And the cards look awesome! I may need to grab hold of a couple myself!

Your flash challenge this week is 'Don't sweat it!'. Drop and give me 100 or an icon! Post it in a comment or link it to this post, so we can all check it out and pat you on the back!

And October is almost over, so don't forget to update your numbers this week, or by the end of the weekend, so I can tell you all the good news on the count front! We are getting close to the wire now, and I would love us to beat last year's 4.2 MILL! Also, this means many of our writers here will be gearing up for NaNoWriMo! Good luck to all of you!

Stop by in a comment here and let me know how you're doing, no matter which of our challenges you are doing (or not!); I'd love to chat!

And let's be creative out there! ;-)

Yes, it is actually Tuesday here again, but most of you should still be in Monday, with luck!

I had a bit of a crazy start to my day today - went to get some cold meat out of the fridge to make lunch to take to the office, and two cans of soda at the back decided to drop down a row (the fridge was packed as shopping was yesterday) when the container I was pulling out dragged the shelf out a bit. Not much in that, but then suddenly I have coke fizzing all over the inside back of my fridge! Unloaded the shelf to pull it out and dump in the sink, when I realise a can of Sprite has followed suit, so I grabbed it to chuck in the sink too, but it lands with the hole facing upward and next thing I have a fountain of Sprite pi$$ing all over my kitchen! It took me an hour to clean it all up and replace everything back in the fridge, plus I was covered in Sprite droplets too... I made the instant decision not to go into the office, but to work from home instead, as I needed to clean myself as well, and my commute time was GONE. Nor had I even made lunch... *sigh*

Anyway, aside from that, the week's been going OK. Yesterday I made the rest of the icons I had hoped to do for the Drabble/Icon challenge, which finished on Saturday! WOOT! I didn't get time to post them last night but hopefully will do so tonight or tomorrow. I hope those of you participating enjoyed all of Angel's great prompts, and managed to complete what you hoped to do! Everyone else, I hope you enjoyed the fills!

Now, technically the new challenge from Sept 1st is Give it a Whirl, run by the lovely flipflop_diva, and ably assisted by kitmerlot1213, but as I forgot who was on and therefore didn't remind them (to be fair, I was away from home last week!), I take all the blame for things not getting underway yet. If either of you two wonderful people are watching, please talk together and kick us off when you're ready! If you or anyone else wants to know how this challenge works, check out this entry from the last time we did it! Sorry I didn't get onto this reminder earlier, my dear hosts, and that this is a post-reminder rather than a message! No blame, no foul, to either of you!

Let's see, what else have we got? All the usual daily and weekly things have been happening, so check out the tags or scroll back to see all the wonderful prompts that have been left for you by our regular contributors. SHOUT OUT to all of you! I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR!!!

Big Buddies, it's early days, but you're looking at something like 10% of your monthly goal in the next 24 hours. You have PLENTY of time to make it up if you're behind. If not, GO, YOU! YOU ARE AWESOME!

Your flash challenge for this week is: THAT was unexpected! Go forth, write or otherwise create something wonderful with that; link us so we can all congratulate you on adding words!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!

Finally, I will just say PLEASE UPDATE YOUR NUMBERS if you haven't already! You have a few extra days to do this, as I don't think I will get to counting until the weekend. I am very excited to see how we're doing now we are down to the last quarter of 2024, so be sure to get your counts up to date so you'll be counted! WOOT!

Now, let's be creative out there! ;-)

I am writing this from Monday morning at my Home Office desk; I've scheduled it for tonight because for most of you it's still Sunday! We like to get ahead of things here in NZ (yeah, right! LOL!) Anyway, thought I'd better do it while I was thinking about it, or later I'd forget (story of my life).

Speaking of which, if anyone knows where I put that one Peter Pan handwarmer (I lost the other one at the airport in May), I could use it about now, as I'm currently wearing a wrist-wrap on my right hand because every now and then it's been giving me problems, and then it will be OK, so before I waste untold $$ going to the doctor's for it where he's likely to say 'Use a wrist-wrap for a while; see if that helps', I thought I would try the $20 option. If it doesn't help after a week or so, I will bite the bullet and pay the $$. It's cool over here now, since we are mid-winter while most of you are enjoying (far too much?) heat on the northern side of the planet, and I need to keep my hands warm when temps are down as purple doesn't suit me. Who knew one handwarmer would be useful - wherever I hid it from myself must be a good hiding place... and I know I didn't throw it out because I determined I would make one to match at some point, as I'm like that. ;-)

Right, enough banter about my idiocy! What's new on your writing horizon? Anything fun you'd like to share? I have not written for months, but that's hardly news! I am WAY behind on the monthly count - the last month I counted was March!!! I need to get that fixed, but will probably wait until July ends and do the month-by-month thing then. Make sure you update your figures between now and early August to be counted! I'm excited to find out how we're doing!

Now, our current Long Challenge is a WIP Push (Thanks for hosting, simplyn2deep, you did an awesome job!), but that's about to finish, so I hope you are well onto your goal with that one, if you took part! You still have time to get a few more words in before it ends, right? The next one up is a Drabble/Icon challenge, and I happen to know that angelus2hot has got a lot of awesome posts lined up! Jump on in; I will try to do so myself, since I've missed the last couple of challenges.

Big Buddies, you should all be at around the 48% mark on your goals, so I hope you're there or above! If not, how can we help you add words? Let us know!

Daily challengers - you guys are stars! You are doing so well! Keep up the good work!

Flash Challenge: No cheering from the crowd. Use it how you will! If you have the time, link us to any creation you get from it, so we can all tell you how fabulous you are!

And don't forget to scroll back over the last week, or check out the tags for any of our regular challenges, to pick up any prompts you missed, and use them to ADD WORDS!!! I know you want to!

That's it from me; have a great Monday, and may the rest of your week have you adding words like there's no tomorrow! Let's be creative out there! ;-)