And the Winner is...
Plus Novel Quest 2025 Theme, Calling for Developers, Prepping for #Preptober, and What I Learned by Using a Typewriter
This is Writing Quests’ Official Newsletter.
Winners of the Drabble Contest
Today, we are so excited to announce the Winners of our Drabble Contest that we held in August. A drabble is a 100-word story, and we received some really awesome entries. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who entered. It was difficult to choose which three for us to put out.
Congratulations to:
Winner: PufferfishWriting “The Mayor”
Follow Pufferfish on YouTube @PufferfishWriting
Winner: L.J. Brown “Into the Void”
Follow L.J. Brown on X @LJF_FJL
Winner: AR Meridian “Trapped at the Cafe”
Follow AR Meridian on X @ARMeridian
The Mayor
By Pufferfish
I sit, waiting for the bartender to get me my drink. The alcoholic next to me has already started to pass out from the 6 drinks he’s had in the past 30 minutes. Ridiculous to think I serve these low lives. I glance behind me, seeing a man in a top hat pointing. He walks over, but I decide to leave the bar without my drink, not interested in discussing politics with yet another aristocrat who thinks they can influence my decisions. As the mayor, I frequently am divulged in mind-numbing conversations about the tariffs and the war effort.
Into the Void
By L.J. Brown
She watched the blue smoke rise from between her fingers into the void. She could hear nothing. She could feel nothing. She was nothing but smoke, ember, and ash made flesh. All her desires, dreams, ambitions had been chosen for her; a cigarette lit by an invisible hand, made for utility and enjoyed insomuch as she brought the user pleasure. Her only way out was to watch herself burn until the final ember of life was snuffed out and her ashes disappeared with the breeze.
Forgotten. Into the void like smoke into the air.
The music stopped.
She could hear.
Trapped at the Cafe
By AR Meridian
The café closes in, the smell of smoke rising up around me. I cannot stir from my appointed spot, my cane ever pressing into my wrist. Have I no voice? Can they not see my endless suffering? How I long to scream at those who torment me. They move in a world I long to witness from anywhere other than this bar stool.
Cold sweat beads upon my brow, forever held in place beneath a heavy silk top hat. Slowly clamping down upon my skull, keeping my spiraling, panicked thoughts from bursting free. If only I could blink my eyes.
What is the Novel Quest 2025 Theme?
Drumroll, Please
It’s almost November, and we here at Writing Quests have been busy little bees behind the scenes getting everything ready for you. Eep!
We are very proud to announce that this year’s Novel Quest theme is: It’s Raining Words!
For those of us brave enough to take the dare, we have inspirational art.
We have a love of all things old. Some of us write by hand, some of us on a typewriter, some of us are still using old-fashioned word processors. We have decided to celebrate this with a graphic and a theme that embraces the dual nature of this type of challenge. On the one hand, as we count down the day to November 1st, our creativity tends to get pent up inside of us. Then in those first few heady days when we finally start putting words on page, they seem to be pour out of us as rain pours down from the sky in a thunderstorm. This is why we have a typewriter under an umbrella and the rain is only inside of the umbrella. At the bottom, you can see our personal pledge: Neither wind, nor rain, nor busy schedule shall keep me from writing my novel.
We know you can’t wait to dive into your Novel Quest novel, so grab some of your digital swag today.
Call for Developers
We are seeking volunteers to help with the Questy development. In particular, it would be helpful to find individuals with skills/experience/interest in
php/Symphony dev
React web
UI and UX
We are on a journey to create a flexible writing progress tracker (Questy) that will have some nice features, including:
supporting common Quests (defined writing challenges)
supporting individual projects of different formats (novels, series, plays, short stories, etc)
supporting some community communication capabilities, beginning with buddies
supporting community/buddy progress tracking graphs (similar to what NaNo Faces provided when it was active).
You can read more about the project at GitHub (especially see our plans on our wiki).
Preparing for #Preptober
It’s nearly October, and while that means haunted houses and hay rides for some, it also means it’s nearly Preptober - the month of preparing to write furiously for all of November. Here are some tried and true tips to prepare for a month-long writing challenge.
Brainstorm ideas and settle on your story: Where do your ideas come from? Are you inspired by music, walks in nature, or daydreams? Engage in activities that inspire your creative side. If you’re in a creative rut, try a random story idea generator, or try smashing together the plots of your favorite book and movie in a new setting. For those unable to choose from multiple ideas, consider which one resonates with you the most. Which idea feels the most compelling?
Plan your schedule: Participating in a writing challenge doesn’t mean you have to clear out your schedule, but you should consider when you can make time for writing.
Stock supplies: I’m giving all you office supply nerds an excuse to buy a new notebook, pens, pencils, notecards, whatever you think you’ll need for the month (not that any of you needed it).
For more advice, the IL Novel Quests is hosting Preparatory Workshops in October. These events will be offered in a hybrid fashion to in-person attendees and virtual attendees (register to receive the zoom link).
How to use tropes in your writing: an interactive workshop: Saturday, October 4th, 1-3 PM CDT, Nichols Library (Naperville), Co-working space (lower level).
Planning, Pantsing, and Plantsing: Writing Tips for a Spectrum of Styles: Saturday, October 11th, 1-3 PM CDT, Nichols Library (Naperville), Co-working space (lower level).
Story Wall Party: Saturday, October 18th, 1-3 PM CDT, Nichols Library (Naperville), Co-working space (lower level).
What I Learned Using a Typewriter
I was born in the 90s, when home computers were already commonplace. In elementary school, each classroom had at least two desktop computers for students to use. And the school’s library even had a computer lab that classes visited twice a week.
I remember seeing only a few typewriters as a kid and viewing them as ancient relics. My grandma had one, and there was another in her church’s Sunday school classroom for children to play with.
To me, typewriters were the coolest things. Secretly, I wanted one of my own. As an adult, I finally bought a new red manual typewriter by Royal, using a work bonus.
I had high hopes. I imagined I’d use the typewriter for everything and somehow transform into a great writer overnight. But, I quickly realised: a manual typewriter, especially in the hands of someone who didn’t grow up with one, doesn’t produce perfect pages. My drafts were messy. I forgot to capitalize sentences (since computers do that automatically), hit wrong keys, or didn’t press hard enough, leaving faint impressions. The machine itself had quirks too—ink smudges, mechanical issues, etc.
On a computer, I was used to multiple rounds of edits, running spell check, and rewriting sentences endlessly. Typewriters offer no grammar check, no red squiggly lines, or easy rewrites. Once the words are on the page, you can’t erase them. (Although you can backspace and strike through text with a hyphen if needed.)
And it wasn’t just spelling or word choice errors. I might think of an idea a paragraph too late. Or realize I didn’t include a detail. Sometimes I could add it in on a new line and hope I would understand the edit later. Other times, I would use special characters to create a section break and then add the missing part. But that was difficult, and I only bothered to do that with important details.
I quickly learned that this wasn’t the time to quibble about word choice or having a fully formed scene with vivid details.
A typewriter is great for a zero draft, where the only goal is to get ideas onto the page. It’s freeing to know it doesn’t have to be good—it just has to exist.
Now, I don’t worry about making my writing perfect. I focus on the scene, getting the ideas out in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness.