30 Day Writing Challenge Archive

In summer 2020, my friend @callmedaisy and I decided to fight boredom with some writing, and what came up was this Scribendi 30 Day Writing Challenge. The idea is that we write a piece every day based on the prompts given by the website.

To say it was an interesting experience might just be an understatement. So, upon finishing the 30 prompts, we decided to do something even crazier – we made a podcast where we talk about the experience and review the prompts. Additionally, instead of putting all the embarassing pieces out there in one huge bundle, we are going to throw them out as posts in accordance with the episodic content of the podcast. And this brand new page is going to be our archive for it!

Feel free to browse our pieces and stories, and let us know what you think in the comments!

The Protagonists’ Journey

The challenge asked us to create several recurring characters, one of which is our main protagonist for some of the prompts. In this section you can browse all our recurring characters’ pieces in one packet! Although these by no means make up a coherent series of stories, we hope you enjoy reading our characters’ journeys as much as we did creating them.

Introducing Minru (by AnYi) and Cara (by Daisy) – our protagonists!

Minru

Day 2 – It’s not every day that one wakes up in one’s own bed half-convinced their body should be better off anywhere else, but this is, owing to some unfathomable joke that fate plays on her life principles, one of them.
Day 3 – ‘I’m never moving back, Auntie. I’m going to sell this place.’
Day 4 – ‘Don’t look so aghast. I’m not dead.’
Day 5 – ‘Save your CV for the next HR meeting.’ Minru apparently had no mercy or respect for the honour of the Dragons. ‘Oh wait, we don’t have any vacancy for weather forecast gods at the moment. Do you know what this means? It means I’m not interested.’
Day 13 – It’s not so much the pain that bothers me – it never is – the real devil here is the haunting fact that ‘I’ve no bloody idea when this is going to stop’.
Day 14 – ‘Have a good cry.’
Day 16 – Her sadness sounded hauntingly sincere, and she stroked Minru’s hair with such tenderness that anyone might believe she was the most attentive mother on earth.
Day 21 – ‘I understand you mortals have a thing for bringing their loved ones back alive, however, you know, high prices must be paid.’
Day 25 – ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t give a damn about your son’s promotion. If he still needs his mother to hunt for a partner for him in this way, I sincerely advise him to remain best friends with masturbation for the rest of his life.’
Day 28 – ‘And this is precisely why I want to see what other people’s heartbreaks look like.’

Cara

Day 2 – It’s then that I remember why my door has moved, and why I hear construction noises from a corner in my room that doesn’t usually have a window.
Day 3 – She doesn’t otherwise move to hug, mind you – with her it’s not really the hug that matters – it’s about leaving herself an opportunity to judge, so it’s left for the opponent to close, so she can grumble about them being rude if they don’t.
Day 4 – Something interesting happened to me today. I know what you’re thinking – something along the lines of ‘everyone always thinks that…’ – but trust me, this one’s juicy.
Day 5 – “I was just a regular gal until I was bitten by a glass of radioactive water, and now I fight crime as Aqua!”
Day 13 – Get slapped on a hot day, and it hurts, sure. Get slapped on a cold day and – on the rare occasion your face doesn’t just shatter – it stings for hours.
Day 14 – A huge, broad man – my first thought would probably have been minotaur were it not for the tattooed bald head really drawing attention to the lack of horns.
Day 16 – Gerald misses their old life; the life before the attic.
Day 21 – Turns out my skeleton is a sadistic bastard.
Day 25 – “I’m not your dad, kid, so just- Cara?!”
Day 28 – There’s only one part of moving house that I enjoy, and that’s playing judge to the assorted piles of crap that have accumulated over the years. I’d happily also fill the roles of jury and executioner, but for some reason people still live by this archaic rule that only the owner can throw their stuff away. One day I will make them see sense, though. And the floor while I’m at it.

Other characters: full list to be updated.

The Complete Stories

Occasionally, we were told to write a complete story based on the given prompt. And this is the magic cave where you can find all of those…

Day 12

Take the first line of your favorite novel. Remove and replace the nouns and verbs, and write a story that begins with your new line. Delete the first line.

AnYi – ‘You were once my brightest pupil, Little Lin. Have you finally come to kill me?’
Daisy – I remember looking at mum, then; her face was white, and there was a look in her eye I couldn’t quite identify at the time. Looking back now, I know what it must have been.

Day 22

Find a cliché you absolutely hate. Rewrite it while keeping the intended meaning intact.

AnYi – ‘Have a nice trip.’ He said, in the same tone one might say ‘I won’t care if you die right under my nose.’
Daisy – A lot of options jump to mind (Sorry, no Adam here – only me… er… James? Feign amnesia! Just play it cool, dude – he’ll calm down.) and are dismissed as failures just as quickly.

Day 27

Tell the story of a man who lives in a motel.

AnYi – I knew how to make men come, not how to make them stop being so sad.
Daisy – One quality that no-one would assign him is promiscuous – the closest anyone would come would be inventive, as what he calls a rhumba is… well, there’s a reason he’s taking a class.

Day 30

Finish a story with the line, “Nothing ever felt easier to say.”

AnYi – The summer in the city, with its car noises mixed with cicada screeching in camphor trees, had long since been given a nostalgic glow and stored in the deepest back of my mind. I had lost her and myself in those summers.
Daisy – “Adam?” It fascinates me how a single word can carry so much meaning – when my mother said it, she did so with her trademarked ‘deliberately poorly veiled’ brand of distain, whereas this felt genuine; the surprise I’ve heard so often mingled with a pained relief to bring a sad smile to my face.

The Favourites

This section lists all our favourite prompts from the challenge — browse for the full story!

AnYi

Day 1 – Their incomprehensible hairstyles annoyed him a little – decent young men should at least have higher aspirations than seeking resemblance to roosters, certainly!
Day 13 – It’s not so much the pain that bothers me – it never is – the real devil here is the haunting fact that ‘I’ve no bloody idea when this is going to stop’.
Day 24 – Let them give you everything / Before they take away it all
Day 27 – I knew how to make men come, not how to make them stop being so sad.
If you’ve checked out the podcast, you proably know that I have a hard time deciding on my favourites – well, I just really like most prompts where Minru comes up, so scroll back to the previous section for more!

Daisy

Day 7 – So this guy is all like, ‘oh, hey mom; I like your pet’ and then it dies. The guy’s dad snuffs it soon after, and everyone’s pets get stolen by this dude who already had a pet, so like – rude!
Day 13 – Get slapped on a hot day, and it hurts, sure. Get slapped on a cold day and – on the rare occasion your face doesn’t just shatter – it stings for hours.
Day 16 – Gerald misses their old life; the life before the attic.
Day 22 – A lot of options jump to mind (Sorry, no Adam here – only me… er… James? Feign amnesia! Just play it cool, dude – he’ll calm down.) and are dismissed as failures just as quickly.
Day 30– “Adam?” It fascinates me how a single word can carry so much meaning – when my mother said it, she did so with her trademarked ‘deliberately poorly veiled’ brand of distain, whereas this felt genuine; the surprise I’ve heard so often mingled with a pained relief to bring a sad smile to my face.

Listen to our dicussion on the good/funny/interesting prompts:

Youtube:

Bilibili.com

The Weirdos

Here you can find the prompts that we did not enjoy as much, or found really difficult writing, or just frankly bizzare. It probably comes as little suprise that we are not, after all, posting all of these pieces because we are probably deeply embarrased of them and would tear those virtual documents apart if given the chance.

AnYi

Day 9 – How on earth do you turn a Tweet into a haiku??
Day 10 – As one of the oldest species with magical powers in the history of China, it is our duty to inherit essence of the traditions of our ancestors and enhance their spirit of dedication, diligence, as well as their pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.
Day 11 – I said, I like a bit of historical gossip…
Day 16 – ‘Don’t do this to Mummy again.’
Day 29 – For Peter, it was actually good for his health, at least in the beginning.

Daisy

Day 9 – How on earth do you turn a Tweet into a haiku??
Day 10 – Do I believe in the fey? A good question, to be sure. But that’s rather not the point, is it?
Day 11 – Stay comfortable, wyrmlings, and leave the overhoarding to those who must distract from how terribly small their tails are.
Day 24 – Daisy’s ‘Ruined Version’ as they call it.
Day 29 – So now only one question remains. This here – this tall glass of sweet bubbles – is my liberation. Where’s yours?

Listen to our dicussion on the bad/weird/difficult prompts on Youtube and Bilibili:

(with subtitles in English and Chinese)

Inspirations

In Episode 4 of our podcast, we discuss the sources of our inspiration for writing and take a critical view of our writing skills. Most pieces mentioned in this episode are listed in sections above, however, there are still some hidden documents ready to be revealed…

Listen to Episode 4 on YouTube and Bilibili:

The Fragments

And finally, you’ve come to the forgotten corner where we store the passably presentable pieces that were not included in the previous sections or the podcasts…

Full list to be updated.