Hey all, Sam here.
Look at that, I have another post for you already, and this one is writing related. I can’t promise that I’ll be regular with check-ins for this upcoming writing challenge, but if all goes well I will hopefully be giving you weekly updates. We’ll see what happens.
After Gen Con I took a little break from creative writing….again. Honestly I feel pretty bad about that, because I’d really like to be writing more. I really miss getting lost in that creative pursuit, being so caught up in the characters and the story that I can just escape into it for hours at a time and walk away with a couple rough chapters drafted. In the past handful of years I have really let the stress of real life rob me of my creative time, and I need to work on being better about that.
With that being said, I have once again decided to participate in the Write Brave Challenge, which is hosted by Writer’s Atelier. This challenge gives me just enough time to still have a couple of weeks of participation in Preptober for the big Pathfinders Writing Collective writing challenge November-January (and I’ll talk more about that in a future post), because that will be a much different creative project and goal than the one I have in mind for this challenge.
Okay, first let’s talk about the Write Brave Challenge in general, and then I’ll talk about my project and goal specifically. Let’s get started.
What is the Write Brave Challenge?
The Write Brave Challenge is a 30-day writing challenge where a writer sets a daily goal in order to achieve an intention at the end of the 30 days.
For example, if your chosen intention is to complete a 60,000-word first draft of a novel, you would need a daily goal of 2,000 words. Every day while the challenge runs, you’ll be invited to report on your progress within the community for all your fellow participants to see. This will hold you accountable, and seeing other writers report on their progress will inspire you to match their energy!
Important to note: this challenge is in no way limited to novelists—it’s completely flexible while still allowing for the structure needed to focus on getting the writing done.
When is the Write Brave Challenge?
The Write Brave Challenge takes place twice per year:
April 15th – May 15th (Spring)
September 15th – October 15th (Fall)
If you’re finding this after the event’s begun and before it ends—jump right in! Better late than never!
If you’ve found this after the event’s ended, sign up anyway. We plan to host the challenges twice per year.
Who Can Participate in the Write Brave Challenge, and How Much Does it Cost?
We invite writers of all skill levels to join in on the fun, whether this will be your first attempt at a 30-day writing challenge or your tenth!
Because we want this event to be as inclusive as possible, this challenge is absolutely free to participate in from start to finish.
How to Participate in the Write Brave Challenge
1
Join the club within our free online community. There, you’ll be in a group of like-minded writers all working on their own daily goals and intentions.
2
Download your free participant kit. Inside the kit, you’ll find free resources, social media graphics, and a worksheet for brainstorming what you’ll challenge yourself to write during the challenge.
3
Commit to your intention and daily goal. After you’ve chosen your intention for the challenge, you’ll commit to your intention and daily goal using the Google Form available inside the community. You’ll also have the chance to share it, and once the challenge begins, you’ll be encouraged to share your daily progress!
4
Mark your calendar. Once you’re signed up, you’re all set! Tell your loved ones you’ll be taking on a project from September 15 through October 15, and keep your daily goal in mind as you make plans.
5
Spread the word! We believe writing bravely means owning the fact that you’re a writer. Mention the challenge in your other writing communities and group chats, and use the graphics in your participant kit to post about it on social media. When it comes to events like the Write Brave Challenge, the more, the merrier!
What Are the Write Brave Challenge Guidelines?
Be supportive. Encourage and support your fellow participants. No one here is looking for your criticism, cynicism, advice, or judgement. (We can get those things on the rest of the Internet).
Share generously. Your stories and experiences may be exactly what another writer needs to hear today to solve a problem or seize an opportunity.
Be constructive. We’re here to push each other forward and lift each other up. Find ways to help each other think bigger, reframe challenges, and stay curious.
Don’t spam, promote, or troll. The Write Brave Challenge exists to help you learn. It’s not a place to spam or bully anyone else. We also ask that you keep any self-promotion to the designated post. This will help prevent our feed from getting cluttered!
Okay, so the Write Brave Challenge is a 31 day writing challenge. You set an intention for yourself and then break that down into whatever daily goal would be needed to accomplish that intention.
This is something I’ve talked about before, but David and I met while playing Dungeons & Dragons, and it has been a huge part of our life together for the entirety of our relationship, so for nearly nine years already. In the past four years we have played a few different TTRPGs that are set up for just two people, primarily the Date Night Dungeons series by Urban Realms. (We’ve posted a review for their second adventure, Wight Wedding, already, and we plan to write up reviews for the other two currently released adventures as well).
But playing in these two-person adventures has made us consider writing our own. So that’s what I’m going to focus on for this writing challenge. We have the rough ideas for two different adventures currently. I want to write up the synopses and basic overviews for both of these adventures.
I’m going to be conservative in my estimation for how much we’re going to get written, and say that my intention is in the 10,000-20,000 word range. For a 31 day challenge this would mean 323 words a day (for 10k) and 645 words a day (for 20k). Technically for the math it would be 322.58 words/day or 645.16 words/day, so I went ahead and rounded up for the 10k goal.
I’ve never tried writing something like this. I’m not really a plotter/outliner (more of a pantser, or technically a plantser if you consider the worldbuilding to be planning), but I feel like having a solid outline/synopsis for the adventures could make it easier to figure out the necessary story writing as well as the RPG writing and planning. The focus is technically on the story side of things right now, but we do hope to eventually have these adventures available for several different RPG systems (definitely at least D&D 5e/TOV, Pathfinder, and Daggerheart, although we would consider other systems as well).
Wish me (technically us) luck. This could be an interesting project.
Well, that’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 
1 thought on “Weekend Writer: Write Brave Challenge 2025”