Time once again to welcome some new people to the group in an official capacity! Obviously a good chunk of y'all have been active already, but still, everyone gets one. Without further ado, please welcome... @Eliud Kimathi, academic-focused nurse practitioner interested in sharpening healthcare essays and professional research projects. @Valerie Bachinsky, health educator and RN building a daily creative habit around health, risk reduction, and real-life stories. @Leala Vincent, aspiring poet and toddler mom sharing pieces about love, change, and everyday moments. @L. Roberts Dale, self-publishing author and YouTube host here to help storytellers shape and launch their books. @Ben Olivia, professional editor focused on Christian books, clarity, structure, and strong storytelling from draft to finished manuscript. @Silvia Martins, human rights researcher shaping a memoir at the intersection of justice, accountability, and environmental stories. @Vera Sephora, romance fiction specialist helping turn almost-ready love stories into polished, publish-ready books and audiobooks. @Jenna Kelly, homeschool mom of five and book lover shaping a novel from dream sketch to finished story. @Esmond Thea, paranormal romance author and creator blending supernatural themes with online business and affiliate-world experience. @Oliver Haddington, fiction-focused creator here to level up craft, confidence, and overall storytelling skills. @Kim Wilson, who's just browsing for the moment but came here courtesy of @Kirsten Ivatts. I make these posts so everyone has a guaranteed way to get introduced to people and have an easy first connection point. If someone here sounds like your kind of person, say hi on their posts or pull them into a thread.

First week done! Thank you everyone for jumping in, and a reminder that you can always start the challenge anytime if you'd like - just comment "I'm in" on the pinned post and start writing! Even a few sentences count. With that said, I'm gonna tag the people who've started thus far and their total days (from what I can see in the group itself, obvs if you write and don't post about it that's still excellent, I just can't see it :P). Starting with... Me! I'm at 3/28 so far. @Hannah Cardamone! 8/28, nicely done. @Kirsten Ivatts, at 4/28! @Kexxie Wolf, at 3/28! @Clare Naden, at 8/28! @Vera Sephora, @Jessica Huckabay, @Nesha W, and @Eliud Kimathi, who I can't see any explicit challenge posts by as of yet (which doesn't necessarily mean you haven't been writing, I know Jessica recently finished a 10k word challenge, for example). Don't be shy, though! Even posting a quick paragraph about an idea you had is enough for a day.

Between yesterday and today, I've written over 500 words on an essay that's been knocking around in my mind for a while. It's not a lot, but it's significant after a long string of days with 0 words. It feels good to be writing again.

I am still in this stage of free writing to allow all the drivel to spill out without judgement. But I was inspired by the weekly prompt, The Unsent, and added a short letter into a scene I had been playing with. It's a bit of nonsense but fun nonsense :). Here goes some of it: Dear Olivier By the time you read this you will be back home, far from the screeching of London buses and glare of taxis lined up in the rain. You’ll be breathing mountain air, perhaps not missing the terrible coffee and sweaty, stifling trains. I imagine you've been to see Julia, perhaps she gave you some eggs from her hens or potatoes from her garden. You will also, no doubt, be continuing to ‘settle the affairs’ of Michel, compiling all the information on his assets, his liabilities, all the many taxes due. I hope you get to spend some more time in his white house, bathing your soul in its tranquillity, soaking up the views of the mountains and drinking in the peace that it offers. I hope you can forgive me for not showing up tonight, and that you didn’t wait too long out in the cold. Perhaps for you it wasn’t cold, coming from a place where you shovel snow in winter just to get out the door. Even so. You may be thinking I owe you an explanation, and maybe you are right. But even if I could understand myself what drove me to walk left towards the station that night instead of straight ahead, I’m not sure it would help. After all, what is there to understand when perhaps what drove me was made of years, if not generations, of tiny hurts and disappointments, that have settled in, like weeds, growing deeper and thicker as time goes on?

I feel this rant belongs in the challenges section because I find myself in the strange space between being aware, wanting to let the process happen - to feel the situation, and wanting very much to preserve my own peace and reject the more than natural feelings that are coming up this week. I'm talking about the elelphant in the room or rather the stampede of angry, incredulous, fearful and devastating feelings that are driving the elephants throughout our global awareness. I'm an American living in Eastern Europe and I cannot unsee nor unaware myself of the elephants. Yet the horror is so thick with reality that dissociation is attractive and probably a necessary part of processing in order to stay with that reality and hold space for the truth, to not make little or make light of what it is, to not deny and reject what we are about to face for the coming months and years. Obviously, this becomes a huge obstacle to being creative, at least right now. Getting into the flow to create something with whimsy, passion or concentration feels forced, strained. In equal measure, I cringe to think of writing as a way to express what I'm feeling, to create something from this unprecedented time in our communal consciousness. It all just feels inherrently inadequate. I dare not speak of the stampede of elephants. It's too hard, too hardcore. But these are my personal feelings, and perhaps it's just challenging because I must prepare myself to both express and supress my feelings on the topic whenever it's broached with the 20 or so other feeling, thinking professional adults I will meet over the next week. I wonder if anyone else has similar feelings? Is anyone else dismayed and distracted to the point that writing isn't flowing, that the mind must detach, and somehow the elephants must be addressed before returning to our creations? Or perhaps you are blessed with enough distance to be able to express something poigniant, and it has great potential for your creative process? Thank you for reading and I would be grateful for your thoughts, as a different perspective would be amazing.