February 2026 Writer Support Thread

[raywilson]

happy february, everyone, and happy almost-valentine’s day!

a short introduction…
to any new participants (whether you’re actively writing, planning a project, or just checking the thread out), this is a continuation of the monthly writer’s support thread, which is a CoG Forum tradition started around 2020 by @poison_mara and continued for several years by the late @Eiwynn.

these writer support threads are a no-pressure way for us writers to keep track of our monthly goals, writing progress, and any writing-related thoughts or whatever that come to mind throughout the month. typically the first day or two of the month sees everyone who wants to participate in the thread listing their goals somehow, which we then reflect on for the last 1-2 days of the month.

on the 15th of the month we have ’snippet day,’ where anyone can share any snippet from their project for practice sharing their writing with an audience. snippets don’t receive feedback by default, so if you are open to feedback, make sure to mention that (and consider joining a ‘feedback exchange’ if you’re specifically looking for it!).

to any returning visitors, hi! welcome back as always, i’m excited to hear about everyone’s progress this month.

monthly spotlight
here are a few projects with new content, or updates scheduled for sometime this month.

1. Scarlet Sorceress by @ChanceOfFire has a full RO update planned for sometime this month (this will be updated with the exact date when it’s published!)
2. A Shriek of Ash and Fire by @NumberedEntity received a sizeable update in mid-January
3. Pactbinder by @Hamartia received a demo update on February 3 (chapter 2 added)
4. Villain Intern by @quillpen received a demo update on February 8 (approx. 10k words per playthrough added)
5. Games for Blind Gamers 5 is a game jam running through the month of February, for anyone interested in checking it out or even submitting! ChoiceScript is a great language for writing games accessible to visually-impaired players. (thank u @ChanceOfFire for posting this!!!)

a little valentine’s day celebration…
since it’s february, and i am a valentine’s day fanatic, i have just a few little themed goodies for the thread. just for kicks

first, i made a valentine’s day quiz — very unserious, but hopefully fun. answer silly questions and get a valentine’s themed surprise at the end!

and, since i couldn’t settle on any specific articles this month (alas), here are a few poems that fit the love/romance/valentine’s theme.

1. “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance” by Ada Limón
2. "Logos as Alchemical Marriage and Each Other in the Dance” by Li-Young Lee
3. “Eileen” by Olive Franklin

happy february, everyone!

[ChanceOfFire]

@raywilson thanks for setting up the thread.

Also, something I want to spotlight for the month, without the stage this time.

Games for Blind Gamers 5

itch is hosting a jam for devs to make blind-accessible games, with some prizes. As much as I complain about choicescript, one positive is that it is accessible to visually-impaired players. If you like, you can try writing a game for the jam. It is a month long, which is a lot of time as far as jams go.

Refer to my guide if you need help putting a choicescript game on itch.

@raywilson

oh that’s an awesome jam!! do you mind if i put it up on the big post?

Sure thing!

[raywilson]

oh that’s an awesome jam!! do you mind if i put it up on the big post?

[Jaybirdy]

Thanks for the thread, @raywilson!

I’m currently in the process of trying to get my next chapter finished by the end of March. Which means I’d like to be a little over halfway done with it by the end of February. So the goal is:

• Complete the first 6-7 scenes of Chapter Eight.

That should put me in reasonably good shape to finish the rest in March.

I wish everyone good luck with their goals this month, and great progress even if you don’t have any in particular.

[chloegalanis]

Thanks for the thread! My goal this month is to complete Part IV and V for the Monarch of Mediana. The good news is Part IV is almost done save for two sub arcs, but the bad news is Part V is like completely blank. Hopefully I could get it done by the end of this month, so I can wrap up Act I and proceed to Act II!

[Jonathan_Bagelman]

I just completed Chapter 1 of The Rise of Cthulhu yesterday, after only three weeks and ahead of schedule. I’m hoping to complete Chapter 2, which I’ve barely started on tonight, by the end of the month. I am busier than usual, with a medical procedure and a convention in the second half, but I think I can still finish it.

[Sylents]

Optimistically want to complete ch4 this month.

Realistically, finish the optional Elysium portion of ch3 and progeny side of ch4.

Sidenote: I passed my original progress before I scrapped it so this the furthest I’ve gotten on any wip I’ve done…ever.

Ironically or whatever, Project Vampire will likely be completed before Era of A.

[zozopuff]

Thank you for the thread @raywilson!

It’s not quite midnight here yet, but I’m overly eager for Jan to end. I didn’t really hit the desperate goal of 3k words in one day (no focus and no hyperfocus boost saved me ), but I managed about half that, so I’ll take it.

My only real goal for Feb is to make narrative progress and hopefully bring this segment to a close – or as near to completion as I can in 28 days. Secondary hope is hitting that 200k mark along the way. That feels like big boy numbers and makes me a little happy on the inside, mostly because it means I’ve managed to stick with this project despite the odds not really being in my favor (serial project abandoner). Proud of myself lol.

[NumberedEntity]

Thanks for the mention, @raywilson, and for continuing the Writer Support thread tradition. It is one of the pillars here.

Best wishes for the month to everyone. I’ll be away for a bit. I hope to get the last pre-concluding scenes done for Ash and Fire, perhaps some lich-squishing. Yes, that’s suitably epic. For Feb 26, I plan to squish a lich or 2.

[myeraland]

@ChanceOfFire

itch is hosting a jam for devs to make blind-accessible games

Reading this moves me. It’s disheartening when I can no longer enjoy such wonderful products due to my limitations.

[Dryinspection]

Mmm. Birbday month. Funky one. My goal for this month is to reach at leasg 15k words by the end.

Good luck to the rest of you and happy birbday to the rest of you February goobers.

[LampPostProjects]

Happy February, all!

For my ChoiceScript WIP, Bestiary, my minimum goal is to complete the first draft of chapter two (which is probably about 60% there, currently). Beyond that, I aim to polish what I have to the point where I might be ready to share the first two chapters as a public demo.

In non-ChoiceScript projects: I have a couple goals on a timeline of 6-8 weeks, so some of them will roll over into March.

I’m about to start privately playtesting, and then refining, my upcoming release Fantasy Opera: The Theater of Memory. It’s an illustrated IF game coded in ink, which I aim to polish and submit to Spring Thing by the end of March.

I’m also aiming to put together remastered versions of my three games that appeared in IFComp (The Secrets of Sylvan Gardens, Fantasy Opera: Mischief at the Masquerade, and The Path of Totality), which will include some nice feature updates. I hope to finish one or two of these in time for submission to the Amare Games Festival by mid-March.

Hope everyone has a good start to the month!

[LisHz]

Happy February!

My goals for this month are to write at least 10k (ideally 15k…) of chapter 4 and to (probably) create a WIP thread for The Lamplighters Guild.

In January I completed ch3, restructured ch1 a bit, turned my notes for ch4 into an outline, and wrote the first beat. So I’m pleased with last month and am looking forward to this month.

[Zaxwlyde]

Happy February, all!

My goals for this month are:

• Complete the initial shoppe systems and economy calculations for the Realm Master in the town of Stones Hollow
• Begin/Complete work on Blacksmithing in Stones Hollow
• Complete the story content that builds up to Stones Hollow

All in all, my hope is to reach about 30k words this month if I possibly can. Not sure if it’ll be feasible with all the coding I have to do, but I’m trying to stay optimistic.

I hope everyone has a great and wonderful lovers’ month!

[Hamartia]

Hey all, and good luck with your goals!

I’ve already blabbered about my own goals enough in my thread for Pactbinder, but really the only thing I want to do is get a couple of rounds of playtesting for Chapter 2 done ASAP so I can drop the chapter and take a brief writing break (whilst hopefully gathering feedback for the story so far) so that I can play Dragon Quest VII…

Making good progress so far. I’d love to have the update out earlier in the next couple of days, but will depend a lot on what else life has for me to deal with.

[raywilson]

alrighty it’s february for me now so ! my goal for this month: finish drafting chapter 2. i may be able to do this, depending on how many more words it ends up taking, but only time will tell.

[LiliArch]

I’m afraid my goal right now is to warm up… I can hardly think of anything else when I’m freezing.

[Blunderbutts]

After a successful January, I’m getting slightly more ambitious for February.

I’m setting a goal of 6,000 words. That’s only a slight bump in output, but I’m also aiming to improve the quality of the first chunk I’ve written down. Better descriptions, a more consistent tone, etc. Writing in little bits and pieces has been good for rebuilding the habit but not so great for overall quality, so that’s going to have to be something I improve over time.

I also intend to improve my plans for the next chapter settled, and just generally increase the amount of time per day I’m devoting to the project as a whole.

[Fraud_Writer]

Hello, is it me your looking for. Anyways, my plans for the month is to write the update, write the game jam, write a game for my partner, and finally just write.

we will see if I can do it all.

[MoonlightBomber]

Haven’t logged in since around mid-January because of an unexpected system error (3 BSODs in one morning) that forced me to replace the main hard drive that I use everyday in my rig. And also, I’ve had my birthday last January 20.

Now that that’s all settled, my goals for February are more laid-back, now that I’ve made the prologue of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 4 for the recently-finished Global Game Jam.