Day of the ___ Writer

Mosaic of many lives

Mar 03, 2026

We also combined 100+ pieces from this collab into Week of the ___ Writer, a surreal reflection of our many days.

This collab celebrates our daily lives as writers. Despite everything else we got going on, we carve out precious time to write kick-ass stories.

Now, we open windows into those worlds behind our worlds. Each of us wrote day-in-the-life pieces, and picked a word to describe our writerly self (you can call me couch writer).

We’ve blended snippets from our posts into a mosaic of poems, titled with a mash-up of our “___ writer” words.

Can you hear our lives echo through the chaos of these chimeric verses?

Foolish Cannibal: A Nonlinear Star

Most days I know nothing.
I wake up at 5am
furious and gutted, again.

By lunchtime,
three universes are arguing
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
responsibility fuck.

Authors
Annie Hendrix — Foolish
MM Rossi — Cannibal
Wendy Russell — Nonlinear
lchristopher — the kind i am. literary fiction. poetry. international star.

Bipedal, Working Class, Margin: Will Inherit the (not-so-Real) Earth

Another day
is dawning outside.
Another chance
to work on your dreams.

Write ten words,
check Italian Tinder,
send a flirtatious message with questionable grammar.

On a good night:
a thousand words
and my eyes weary
On a bad night:
a painful sentence, or two,
and a not subtle reminder
of my failures—laid flat
on a good mattress.

Authors
Anastasiia Shafran — not-so-Real
Daniela Clemens — Working-Class-Will-Inherit-the-Earth
Nick Buchheit — Margin
Alex Shifman — Bipedal

Wrecked Bike, Dew Bug

I am a thing
of gears and mechanism
Words spun lovely
are my heroin:
Constellation
of flaking dreams
drawn
in the chalk of unfinished.

Language
art
literature:
Decrepit dodos
in an animatronic zoo.

Authors
Ian Patterson — Bike
Mack Devlin — Wrecked
Guy Craig — Dew
Eponynonymous — Bug

Weird, Animal Loving Couch

I’m writing
with deer
in the cold.

Animals remind me that home—
is all the creatures I love.

Authors
Nicole — Weird
Liz Horsman — Animal Loving
Trevor Cohen — Couch

Kaleidoscopic Flood: Reluctant, Daydream, Anxious Horror

Feet in the water,
fingers in the socket
The flow state—
my favorite kind of high
How a daydream
becomes a story,
one fragment
at
a
time

Imagine the damned scenarios
until their conclusions.
I don’t want to write,
I want to have written.

Authors
Sandolore Sykes — Flood
IanDMTaniels&HouseOfChapters — Kaleidoscopic
Tina Crossgrove — Daydream
Hylia Corvidae — Anxious Horror
A Story Of Sorts — Reluctant

Constant Shorebird, Not-Really Left-Licked — Weird

I get my best ideas
from the ceiling.
My soul equates discipline
with a loss of power.

It’s shoreside play,
kicking waves,
gritty sand in my toes.
Time is never mine—
that’s part of the fun
to see the strange
in the everyday.

Authors
Will Boucher — Left-Licked
QuYahni B Joseph — Not-Really
Anuradha Prasad — Shorebird
RM Greta — Constant
Maps of the Lost — Weird

Evolving Accidental Panic

Instead of basking in her misery,
she built a routine

60oz coffee,
100mg Wellbutrin,
20mg Dextroamphetamine,
2mg Xanax ER,
four 1mg Xanax IR

An eldritch kind of serendipity.

Authors
Tiara Ito — Evolving
Emil Ottoman — Panic
Shay Morgendorffer — Accidental

Possessed, Grasping, Everything Nonexistent

People in my community all see me as something different

I love the tactile,
the visceral,
the real.

I move in a twilight zone,
half here, half there.

I try not to fool myself
into thinking that I exist
in any substantial sense.

Authors
Bradley Ramsey — Everything
Ian Dunmore — Grasping
Jane Dougherty — Possessed
A.P. Murphy — Nonexistent

Secret Entropic Parallax

Distortion
tells the truth.

The message on the ceiling
could turn devastating:
Deadly little secrets
my organs are hiding.

Authors
Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️ — Parallax
Zachary Dillon — Secret
Zani D — Entropic

Grateful, Hopelessly Distracted

I rely on a well-trained,
biological LLM.

In my head:
The daily intrusions
of a hopelessly distracted writer.

Authors
JunkMan — Grateful
Jessica Maison — Hopelessly Distracted

Anemoiac Borderlands, Regularly Scheduled Eldritch-Horror

There is no avoiding
their toothy chatter
When burn out wins...
day after day

The Void doesn’t care
about calcium intake
until I’ve retuned myself
to the universe’s frequency.

Authors
Mason Andrews — Regularly Scheduled
C.C. Harlow — Anemoiac
Nikki | Nocturnal Narrator — Eldritch-Horror
Siobhan Gallagher — Borderlands

Benjamin Franklin: Haunted by 100% Plant-Based Horror

Try to set my one-bedroom apartment on fire
once,
twice,
three times,
then I give up and go to work.

Then shower and bed.
And sleep,
usually with nightmares.

Authors
MA Knight — Haunted by Benjamin Franklin
Honeygloom — 100% Plant-Based Horror

Fairy Godmother Comeback! Earthbound, Soil on Her Paws.

That I’m writing at all
feels like a miracle
I’m always working on
being my own fairy godmother.

We call these stories,
fantasy, fiction,
utopia.
I call them blueprints
I circle the yard
and try to remember
where I buried the work.

Authors
Thaddeus Thomas — Comeback
Charlotte Henley Babb — Steam Punk Space Opera Fairy Godmother
Qibra — Earthbound
S.E. Reid — Soil on Her Paws

Broken, Only 4 Minutes to Save The World

I am wabi-sabi’d with dime store epoxy

An Autogenous
Autodidact’s
Autotelic
Autointerview
Autobiography
as Autofiction
about Autoeroticism

Authors
Vinny Reads — Broken
JamesLuo — Only 4 Minutes To Save The World

Neurotic Whimsical Toybox

About 67.9% of my time
is spent herding a combination
of Lego,
Hot Wheels
and puzzle pieces
into random piles.

I have a desk
that’s best described as “curated chaos”
Whimsy is in my DNA.

Authors
Sophie Thompson — Toybox
James Ryan — Neurotic
Angela Allen — Whimsical

Mysterious Talentless, Running Manacled, Hazy Lost and Found — Preserving

Mind in motion,
a lineage that refuses to go silent.

It’s 3 AM, and I’m tossing
My demons of choice are refusing to let me sleep
Woke again at 4 a.m.
and wrote a poem about my hopes for my sons
A light memento mori
with breakfast

Mornings whisper;
midnight builds the mysteries I keep:
A novel—
Safe Words
for the Damned.

Authors
Connecting Communities 🏳️‍🌈 — Preserving
Walt Shuler — Running
Johanna C. Eschwald —Manacled
The In Between — Hazy
American Woman 1984 — Lost and Found
Erica Drayton — Mysterious
George Kalantzis — Talentless

Chaotic Distracted

You reach for your phone
to send yourself a text,
Grandma’s calling.
Better pick it up.

Authors
Jeremy — Chaotic
Mind of Matt — Distracted

Impulsive Chameleon, Anxious Delulu

I want to write
whenever I feel it’s right
I’ll sit down
with a second cup of magic beans.

I cackle to myself at the name,
his rolled-up sleeves,
that one line of dialogue that whipcracks
and is everything.

Wild words written
in the tamest of settings

Authors
Brain of J-Hawk (he/him) — Impulsive
Gregory Blair — Chameleon
Leanne Shawler — Anxious
Garen Marie — Delulu

Aging, Swamp Hobo Aragorn (Finite)

I am 58 years old.
Many good years ahead of me.
The ditch is full
of alchol-free beer cans.

I don’t want to die
with unwritten worlds
stacked behind my eyes.

Authors
John Watson - Horror Author — Aging
Didrik — Swamp Hobo Aragorn
Jenifer Jorgenson — Finite

Curious, Mothering, Chronically-Ill Abandoned Things

It all begins
with wanting an answer.

Through my writing…
I am helping make the world just a little bit better.

There is kindness, and music,
and quiet moments spent dreaming

There’s beauty in abandonment
Space to develop

Authors
Hallie Jules — Chronically Ill
Vanessa Perry — Curious
beesandbelladonna — Mothering
Laura Teodorescu — Abandoned Things

Wandering Inevitable Ex

The summer wanes.
The morning air is damp and cold
What I hyper-fixate on today
will cause burnout tomorrow.

Authors
Keith Charles Dovoric — Inevitable Ex
Maximilian Siddell — Wandering

Selfish/Altruistic Mythweaver

I coffee,
cat,
write,
breakfast,
dress,
write,
nap,
grow older by the day

Ink,
music,
cat footsteps,
solitude,
and the quiet art of surviving

Authors
Michael Horvich — Selfish/altruistic
Sara da Encarnação — Mythweaver

Manic Depressive Overworked

No checking email unnecessarily,
the world can wait
for the car ride to work.

It’s my time,
those quiet hours.
Time when I can try to fill my own cup
after a day
filling other people’s.

Authors
Steven Losco — Manic Depressive
Ian Barr — Overworked

Exasperated Night-City

Late to bed,
late to rise,
makes this writer do night shifts
at the cat shelter.

Writing with a muse
is a terrible and effective thing.

Authors
France Pinzon • literary speck — Night-City
J.M. Gooding — Exasperated

Mystic Interstitial Window

Life happens,
and I prefer the window seat
A story swirls
beneath and throughout this mundane magic

I seem to find success in the interstices,
the empty space
between the chapters of my day.

Authors
Asteria Geisterblum — Window
Tyler Sehn — Mystic
Ryan Kunz — Interstitial

Lazy Dream

Organic chaos of security alarms,
cats and charts.
This writer does not start the day
with the downpour and abundance of time.

Authors
M. Majeris — Lazy
Mac Sitko — Dream

Restless, Reluctant, Metamorphizing Spare-Moments

Eggs sizzle in the pan
and my dog sidles up...
I shed again

Now I’m voracious to pen another standard
I suspect Ziggy is to blame
for the offending lack of punctuation
first drafts are written on my phone

Authors
Adriane Lord — Restless
Lee Summers — Metamorphizing
Gary Mucklow — Reluctant
Sarah Tinney — Spare-moments

Dark Creative Neophyte

My fantastic wife is out of town
on a photography assignment,
capturing athletes in their prime.

my imagination
does some pretty fun things.

Authors
Kenn Reff — Neophyte
Ariadne Pautina — Dark Creative

Hot Mess Alley

Some days,
I ride the waves
like the sea-wolves.

Then, around the corner,
I notice a narrow alley.
I stay behind;
the writer walks in.

Authors
Katharine Kapodistria — Hot Mess
Lilian — Alley

Bipedal Advice

Took
my
brain
off the shelf.

I consult
with my
orrery
before donning my thinking cap.

Authors
Norm DePlume — Bipedal
Professor Pudderfoot — Advice

Rewilded, Melting

Ok…
Write a little.
A little a day, right?
“Shame is on the skin”,
it is said in Melanesia.

Authors
Caroline Osella (they/them) — Rewilded
Nathan Hatch — Melting

Productive, Natural-Born Thrutopian Night

This life I’ve lived
hasn’t always been good,
but it’s been good to live.

I’m writing a lot
am I ruining my life?
Just let me finish this sentence.
I look up.
She is a sentence.

In the face of destruction,
isolation, and cruelties,
I bear down hard
on the pencil lead.

Authors
Jamie's Grim Tabulations — Night
Lou Mindar: A Writer's Life — Productive
Ana Salote — Thrutopian
Deborah French Frisher — Natural-born

Wandering Insomniac

Daydreaming about the high hills
when I should be replying to emails.

We tend to look at the big fish:
the Kings, the Rushdies, the McCarthys, the Wallaces.
But we cannot even say with certainty
whether they are truly that large
or simply magnified.

There are talented writers
swimming right around us every day,
writing with both fire and grace—
leviathans whose true size
we have yet to comprehend.

Authors
Yvonne Reddick - Writer — Wandering
Stefan Baciu — Insomniac

Special thanks to Sandolore Sykes for creative expertise, and to Guy Craig, Alex Shifman, Pablo Baez, Anuradha Prasad, and Salon Europe for initial support that got this project off the ground.

Tredecko

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