Introducing Questy!
Plus 5 Hot Tips for Writing a Drabble; 5 Hot Tips for Writing A Drabble; What I Learned by Using a Typewriter; and A Few Last Summer Reads
This is Writing Quests Official Newsletter.
Introducing Questy!
Questy–track your writing project progress
What is Questy?
Questy is a web-based progress tracker for writing projects, especially those that writers pursue while being motivated by a writing challenge like Novel Quest (based on the Writing Quests framework). Questy is developed by Writing Quests as an open source tracker that can be run even on shared hosting such as is provided by Dreamhost and other hosting providers. It utilizes the php Symphony framework for the backend and React for the javascript front end.
While it is true that there are other progress trackers out there (including trackbear.app that has an impressive set of features and a growing, significant user base), there aren’t many that are also open source projects. Open source projects give the user community opportunities to directly contribute new features and documentation. Questy is licensed using GPL 3.0.
Questy is envisioned to
Give users flexibility in describing and organizing their writing projects
Support for buddies and limited direct messaging (between people who are mutually buddies)
Creation of groups (e.g., groups of friends, writing groups), with shared progress tracking charts (based on word count, % completion of projects, or hours spent editing), and announcements
Creation of writing challenges (like Novel Quest) to which users might decide to participate in, with announcements, leader boards, and community progress tracking charts (similar to what NaNo Faces provided)
Questy is a project of Writing Quests, which is an open framework to create and share the necessary software (via Apache or GPL Software License) or other assets/designs/write-ups (via Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-Alike 4.0 License) needed to host motivational writing challenges such as Novel Quest.
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).
What features does Questy currently support?
Today, with Questy, you can
Create projects
Track your project progress
Update and view your progress charts
Use your own flexible units of progress (want to measure your progress in # of short stories written? # scenes edited? # words written? # hours edited? You can decide this)
Buddies
add a new buddy
Follow a public profile
See public profiles
Report a profile or project that violates the terms of service
Yes, this is a fairly basic set of features, but more are coming.
Features expected by November 2025
Direct messaging between mutual buddies (both sides have to agree to be buddies before direct messaging can occur)
Collections
hierarchical projects (e.g., books in a series or novellas in a series)
MVP November Novel Quest (generic quest)
Announcements
Community progress charts
A way to join / a way to leave
Collective goal (implicit)
time-bound (one month)
A stretch objective: MVP for groups
A group might be a writing group/writing community (e.g., the Writing Journey)
Other envisioned features
Quests (allowing anyone the ability to create their own writing Quests (writing challenges)
quest announcements
community progress charts
quest goals
list of public quests
mechanism to join
a collection of people with specific projects
Groups (to better support writing groups, groups of friends)
group announcements
community progress charts
collective # words written
user activity instead of project activity
# of people who have written today
list of public groups
mechanism to join
collection of people
allow groups to hook in their own discord into the group (web hooks)
A quick walk through Questy
Some items are under active development and screenshots will change over time.
References
See questy.writingquests.org for the Questy application.
Github project page: https://github.com/Writing-Quests/quest-tracker
5 Hot Tips for Writing A Drabble
Last week Gertrude taught us about drabbles. You can read all about that here. This week our other drabble judge
gives you her favorite tips for writing a drabble.K.I.S.S. aka Keep It Simple Silly. With only 100 words to play with, it’s imperative to keep your focus tight and the story line simple. Try focusing in on just one moment and really use your 100 words to let that moment shine.
Understand your descriptors. Forget Faulkner, Hemingway was correct. Use the best one word to describe something. Famously in the movie Throw Mama From the Train, Larry and Owen are talking about writing when Momma answers the question.
Larry: Do you call the night humid? Or do you call the night moist? That’s writing.
Mama: The night was sultry.
It may take delving into a thesaurus to get the correct word, but dig down deep and get it.Write your story without your inner editor on. You need all the elements of a story to make it good. So just write them. A great opening, a middle, a twist, a great ending. Double points for combining the twist with the ending so it’s memorable.
Edit, edit, edit! Once you have a draft start editing. Trust your reader and cut everything before the middle of the action. How many words do you have left?
Be ruthless. Everything that can go, should. And if you’re like me and still over word count then cut the things you love the least. Hold on to nothing but the nugget of the story. And then, make that nugget sing.
And that is how I approach writing drabbles.
Get some practice by rewatching last month’s Livestream
Upcoming Livestream!
August 24, 2025!
What I Learned Using a Typewriter
August is finally here, which means the summer season is coming to a close and autumn is just around the corner.
If you’re looking to get in some last-minute summer reading before packing up your swimsuit and beach bag, look no further! Here’s a list of some recent publications by independent authors local to the Chicago-land area. Stories are sorted by length, so whether you have a week-long vacation to read poolside or just a few minutes to yourself, you’re covered.
Collections and Anthologies: If your attention span can’t handle a full-length novel.
Journey to Adventure: A Writing Journey Anthology by Tim Yao et al.
Storytellers’ True Stories about Family by Anne Beall et al.
<150 Pages: If you need a dopamine hit from reading a story in one sitting.
<300 pages: If you’re craving a novel but not a doorstopper.
>300 pages: If you’re a speedreader, or up for a challenge.
CAGED: Sheppard & Sons Investigations (Book 5) by Eveline Rose
The Harvati Travel Bureau Conspiracy (Book 2) by Samuel McAdams
The Memories Between Us: Love Across Parallel Universes by KV Peck
What were your favorite summer reads of 2025? Let us know!
Summer Reading List
August is finally here, which means the summer season is coming to a close and autumn is just around the corner.
If you’re looking to get in some last-minute summer reading before packing up your swimsuit and beach bag, look no further! Here’s a list of some recent publications by independent authors local to the Chicago-land area. Stories are sorted by length, so whether you have a week-long vacation to read poolside or just a few minutes to yourself, you’re covered.
Collections and Anthologies: If your attention span can’t handle a full-length novel.
Journey to Adventure: A Writing Journey Anthology by Tim Yao et al.
Storytellers’ True Stories about Family by Anne Beall et al.
<150 Pages: If you need a dopamine hit from reading a story in one sitting.
<300 pages: If you’re craving a novel but not a doorstopper.
>300 pages: If you’re a speedreader, or up for a challenge.
CAGED: Sheppard & Sons Investigations (Book 5) by Eveline Rose
The Harvati Travel Bureau Conspiracy (Book 2) by Samuel McAdams
The Memories Between Us: Love Across Parallel Universes by KV Peck
What were your favorite summer reads of 2025? Let us know!