Welcome in, to the first edition of Donecember (Done December)!
What is Donecember
Donecember is a writing challenge where the goal is to finish things, get them done! If you have any WIPs you've been meaning to keep working on, or that you were meaning to come back to, this is your time to shine
How it works
You pick a list of projects (intended to be writing ones, although feel free to adapt this to your needs), and by the end of the month of December they must either be done (to whichever degree you deem necessary), or you must have added an amount of words of your choice to every unfinished WIP
Your list can be as big or small as you wish, and the same goes for your wordcount goal, you just have to pick
For example: You have 5 WIPs, and your chosen number is 2000 words. On December 31st you've finished 3 of the WIPs, added 3000 words to one of the other two, and added 2000 words to the final one. You have won the challenge
Other rules
-You can start a new WIP during this month. However, if you do so they are added to your list of WIPs, which means they are subject to the same rules for the challenge to be won
-The goal is to finish any works in progress, whether you started them last month, last year, or haven't touched them in 5 years. If it is a WIP of yours, you started it before, and it is not finished yet, then it is eligible for this challenge
-This is a challenge open to both fandom and original work, and if you want to adapt it to something that isn't writing you are more than welcome to use it, or make your own based on it
With that, pick your projects, and get them Done (starting on December 1st)
(Feel free to tag this blog or include the #Donecember2025 tag if you post about this, whether it be your list, progress updates, or anything else. If you have any questions feel free to throw them either in the notes or in our ask box)
Accountability post, because I like this "Donecember" idea, so here in no particular order are the fics I'm planning to work on/finish in December:
Charah Hallmark AU - working title: Rex, Actually
Anywhere You Are - I think it's got like one or two more chapters that are half-written
Darkness and Light - Probably need to rewatch Grave Matters a few more times for that one
How Did We Get From Saying I Love You - Looking at this one had me wanting to rewrite the whole thing, which...ugh, I can't, but I might rework some little bits near the beginning
Okay, now that I'm not making a post in a hurry as I'm about to sleep, here's what I'm actually planning to finish for Donecember:
Commission
Just a Girl Prologue ✅
Hallowtober 2024 Day 10
NFL: 🎉
Chapter 1 ✅
Chapter 2 ✅
Unexpected To Say The Least:
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Death:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
And the outline for an original book, but that's something I'm counting for my personal checklist on a phone app.
All these chapters that I've mentioned are chapters that I've already posted on Ao3, but I feel like I won't be able to properly continue either fic if I don't re-read and re-edit every single one of them to get back in the flow of these fics.
I'll be updating this post as the month progresses. Wouldn't it be so good if I could finish Death and UTSTL in 2026?
This December I'm going to be trying to keep my daily writing streak intact (I have written at least a little every day since November 14) + participate in this event: Donecember, which is focused on the completion of WIPs.
(1) Complete 2 out of 3 started Novempreg WIPs I've already started writing;
(2) Write 1k words for at least 1 of the other Novempreg ideas I have not started on yet;
(3) Should I start any new WIPs, write at least 500 words for each idea; and
(4) On or before my birthday (December 19 for accountability), complete and share at least chapter 1 of the first fic in the Buck POV series. (I talk about it at length below the cut if that's something you wanna read about.)
I already gave a bare description of the "Buck POV series" when I did the WIP/idea dump game, but I thought I'd say more about it now that I've committed to getting at least part of it done/putting it out there.
I've been working on it since either March or October depending on whether we start counting from when I started writing things that will end up in it or when I started writing it with a real plan/real idea about what it would be.
It's a mix of 3 different ideas I had separately that ended up fitting together more and more as I wrote more and more of each idea.
(1) The first idea I mentioned before: "Tommy's backstory as told by people from Tommy's past that Buck meets." The original form of this idea was Buck meeting different figures in Tommy's life who, in their encounters with Buck (and sometimes Buck and Tommy), reveal certain incidents in Tommy's past that Buck realizes contributed to Tommy's decision to initiate the break-up.
This isn't entirely lost as a concept because in each story I've been writing/planning for this series Buck either meets, learns of, or recollects meeting/learning of Tommy's relationships with other characters and he does gain more insight into Tommy—although sometimes more insight into himself than Tommy. There's a mix of OCs I want to develop and some exploration of what people we already know in canon mean(t) to Tommy.
(2) So when I was encountering people tagging Tommy posts with things like "I want to study him like a bug" all I could think of was that's 1000% Buck's internal monologue. The fic concept that came of this was Buck conducting "studies" and "experiments" on Tommy because he is going to get a good grade in boyfriending, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve! The concept was kinda silly and I had thought maybe if I could make it longer there might be different chapters or different fics in a series, each titled after school subjects/field of academic study, *cough* like Anatomy. (Or History, which is kind of how it ended up dovetailing neatly into the last idea.)
The tone of the Buck POV series is more somber than this idea by a lot and next part of the puzzle kind of explains why, but there is still quite a bit of Buck applying some of the scientific method (as he understands it) to trying to figure out Tommy and himself and their relationship in this.
(3) The last ingredient in the mix is that it's a post-season 8 grief fic. While the whole series will likely not dwell on/focus on grief, growth through and from grief is a theme and what the first fic in the series will be about. Me being in my feelings after watching 901 is kind of what got me on track and made the puzzle pieces of the different things I'd been writing for a while fit differently in my head and what reshaped some of it.
Anyway, if you read all of this thank you 😅 I mainly wanted to let go of my reluctance to talk about it. I didn't go into much detail before because I had no idea if I'd ever finish it, but I'm resolved that I'm gonna try to at least finish the first part in this series before the show returns in January, so. It was about time I yapped about it I guess.
Almost forgot that it's Donecember now, the writing challenge in which you finish WIPs.
For Donecember, I'll be focusing and finishing going through 'Unexpected to Say The Least' and 'Death's posted chapters, so that I can finish those fics.
