The September challenges have ended (the official ones, anyway) and it was a case of success and not so much on the two fronts.

The good news was the successful completion of Steptember, with all team members notching up their average 10,000 steps a day – and then some! – for the 28 days as well as, thanks to a last-day act of generosity, achieving our $500 fundraising total in support of those with cerebral palsy.

The added benefit of the exercise (all the exercise!) was making me aware of how sedentary I can be when I’m not clomping to the station for work, so the plan (failed already) is to try to do at least 6000 steps a day regardless of what else is on. So I’ll keep the step counter on the phone to nudge me along.

On the other hand (foot?), the wordage for Writers Victoria’s #30kin30days never really took off, in line with expectations, but I still managed to end up with 5000-odd words on the page for Project Whimsy.

It’s formative stuff, trying to write into the time and the characters, and I’ve kept all of the prompts and exercises supplied by Writers Victoria to work through – hopefully this month.

Usually when the words aren’t flowing it means the project isn’t ready: characters aren’t realised, setting’s not solid, story isn’t geared up. A little research and more plotting and character work are called for before the fun stuff can start.

My aim would be to have a draft by the end of the year, but I’m trying to not put too much pressure on it. I also don’t have a word limit, so it can be as long as it needs to be to tell the story. Let’s see how it all goes!

Flowers in the footpath – I think there’s a message in there.