Jano 32, 2024

If you’ve been with us before, you know we just can’t leave you hanging on Jan. 31. We like to send you off with one more challenge for your writing year.

Our final card for this go-round is titled Where to Start and tells you, “In six words, write the synopsis for your magnum opus.”

The dice suggest you take a snapshot of your progress so far, while realizing you can’t help wearing a smile on your face as you reflect on your accomplishments from the past month. We see the gears turning in your brain as you plan to spend another year working on your writing.

As we said before, there are writers who plot and plan, and there are writers who write and wander. Planning writers map each step of their work, knowing where they have to go and how they’ll get there. Discovery writers start with a place or a person or a predicament and just let the words flow where they will.

We challenge you today to set up (or better state) your writing project. In six words, you can set up a story, a chapter, a play. You can set up character, conflict, a circumstance.

It’s well worth taking 15 minutes — more or less — to make a commitment to your writing goals.

Hmm, six words…

Today I continue my writing string.

Pen meets paper, imagination goes free.

Writer succeeds, finishes project, get published.

Again, we hope to see you next year. (And if you get stuck in the meantime, come back to our site and glance through the hundreds of prompts we’ve posted over the years.)

Jano 31, 2024

And we’ve finally reached it. … 1 … The last day of our JanO challenge for this year.

But it’s not over yet.

Let’s see what you can do with the card titled Base of a volcano. A sign in the foreground reads Pompeii City Limits. Hot gases risefrom the ground near a cobbled, Roman-style road. A man and woman stand on the side of the road, watching as lava pours down the mountain.

On the dice, we see a pair of scissors cutting a piece of paper, a hand making a thumbs-down gesture, and someone pressing a button. Is it a doorbell or a release for a safe room? Would a safe room have helped the Pompeiians? Probably not.

But that’s your challenge for today.

We hope you’ve enjoyed JanO 2024. We hope we’ve helped you start a daily writing habit. And we hope to see you next year!

Jano 30, 2024

This card is an interesting draw on the penultimate day of our challenge. Titled Time Travel, it asks: “If you always feel too busy, but imagine some free, creative, untethered place in the future, where is that place? What does it look like? Smell like? Feel like? Are you moving toward it, or is it always the same distance away and just out of reach?”

Our dice show us a plain Plains Indian-style teepee (or tipi), a Southwestern saguaro cactus, and a gun that could be a drill or some kind of laser weapon. You pick.

This card suggests spending 30 minutes on the questions. As always, the time you spend is up to you. And it may vary depending on whether you opt to answer the card questions from your perspective as a writer who has spent nearly a month trying to find “some free, creative, untethered place” to write, OR as part of an ongoing project that will tie in all the dice that rolled up today.

Enjoy your creative space! … 2

Jano 29, 2024

We’re back to “THINGS …,” this time the type “that are hard to put back together,” on our card.

With it are dice showing a child with a doll in each hand, a profile of someone speaking, and a reader intent on the information in a book.

As an aside, despite countless illustrations to the contrary, nowhere in the children’s rhyme does it say Humpty Dumpty was an egg. Still, Humpty epitomizes something you can’t put together again.

But we have faith that you can put something together out of today’s random selection of card and dice. Have fun … 3.

Jano 28, 2024

Looks like today we should be listening through the headphones we see on our card. (Does that put you in mind of a character who is a musician? Or remind you of days spent listening to bootlegged concerts?)

On the dice — we didn’t straighten out the top one — we see someone knocking on a door, a chocolatey, marshmellowy, graham-crackery s’more, and a large, emerald-cut gem.

Wow, can you imagine a heist story where the guys in the van are chowing down on sweets while they listen to the burglars heading for the jewelry? Then there’s a knock on the van door …

Well, you can probably do better than that. Happy writing … 4.

Jano 27, 2024

On our card — titled Lose the Cavalry — we see an arrow-studded bugler looking mournfully toward the ground. The card’s writing challenge is to “Take away the allies and support. Leave your hero to fend for himself.”

(Is it possible he forgot the batteries, too?)

The dice show us an oriental-style gate with an arched, decorative crosspiece on top; a single rose beginning to bloom; and an unbalanced scale. What’s at stake here, and where is it happening? Are we entering a garden or an arena? Do the scales represent justice? Or are they simply scales weighing something important to the battle? Is the rose about to be trampled in the fight or awarded to the victor?

So many ideas to explore today.

And so few days left to get into that daily writing habit. Five …

Jano 26, 2024

Our dice today show us a footprint, a baseball cap, and two smiling people shaking hands and giving each other a thumbs-up signal.

Consider what these might have to do with our card, labeled A lightsaber.

A shadowy Darth Vadar figure, his glowing weapon aimed harmlessly upward, asks, “… Do you need more time?” Next to him, Skywalker shakes his saber and asks, “Why are you not working?!” Meanwhile, in the foreground, a robotic hand reaches for a handful of Double AA’s while we see a dialog bubble reading, “Oh dear … Master Luke forgot to add the batteries!!!”

The card is clearly a scene from a Star Wars movie that might not have a happy ending. But where does the footprint lead? Who needs a ball cap? And what are that happy duo agreeing to? How can these “clues” fit together? Could be hilarious.

Jano 25, 2024

Today we have a chance to develop a familiar or create a new character. Take 25 minutes — more or less — to “Pick a quality that annoys you about someone and write a character sketch where it becomes an asset.”

To go with this card, we have dice pictureing a snake, its tongue extended; a face with narrowed eyes and gaping, frown; and someone with arms outstretched watching as a ball falls to the ground behind him (or her).

Is your character reptilian? Easily frightened? Clumsy? How can these traits become assets in your story world?

Jano 24, 2024

Today we have a chance to write about “THINGS … you would’ve overheard at George Clooney’s wedding.” There’s a challenge for those of us who don’t travel in such elite circles. But what an opening for our imaginations!

Looking at the dice, we see a space rocket crashing onto a moon of Saturn (or other ringed planet); a chicken (is it deciding to cross the road?); and an apple (for lunch or the teacher?).

Who might have been talking about these topics at Clooney’s wedding?

Have fun!