What is a write-along?

I’m sure a lot of people recognize this: you love to write but you can’t seem to find the time. A write-along, by analogy with the MALs and CALs (make-along; crochet-along) from the world of handicrafts and of course the good old sing-along, is a big friendly nudge to help you find that time. A write-along means working on the same project at the same time as other participants. You get instructions one at a time, sometimes every day, but in the case of the first SENSE Write-along that was launched last April, one a week, for twelve weeks. And by the end of that time, you will have written a short story! The assignments are designed to cost you no more than ten to fifteen minutes in actual writing time.

As with all activities you have to find time for, like going to the gym or weeding the garden, actually getting started is the hardest part. With the write-along, most people are hooked on completion of the first assignment. As language professionals, whether translators, copy-writers, editors, or working in other directions, we have to be good writers too. And practising is the best way to keep that skill sharp.

We started the SENSE Write-along with 31 participants and only three dropped out after the first week or two (they shall be nameless here). As far as I know, all the other participants completed the whole process. Sadly, only five chose to post their stories in the section of the Forum set aside especially for them. But those five made me very happy. When you read all of the texts, it’s hard to remember that they were all written according to the same assignments. That’s part of the fun of a write-along and of reading the resulting stories.

A big thank you to everyone who took part this time!

I will be starting a new write-along on 3 January 2025 and I invite you to participate (send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). It would be great if more participants shared their stories with each other.

The writers of the first write-along who agreed to their texts being published will see them appear sometime on the SENSE Blog, but in the meantime I leave you with the short story written by Sally Hill.

A walk in the park
By Sally Hill

Jeannie always let Prince off his leash when they reached the park, and just could not understand how he had ended up at the edge of the duck pond with a broken leg and the life sucked out of him. As she kneeled next to his lifeless body, her neighbour Brenda – uncharacteristically dressed in a boilersuit – approached to offer her sympathies.

Jeannie was surprised at her concern given that Brenda had never previously given either Prince or Jeannie the time of day – and had certainly never been so neighbourly. In response to Brenda’s questions as to what had happened, Jeannie could only reply that it had to have been something to do with the group of teenagers who were always hanging around under the oak trees near the pond. Brenda agreed, but as she helped Jeannie clean the mud off Prince’s coat and wrap him in a reusable shopping bag, Jeannie couldn’t help noticing a stain on Brenda’s boilersuit – a dark red stain that was not mud and looked suspiciously like blood.

After returning home from the vets to dispose of Prince’s muddy body, Jeannie mentioned her suspicions to her boyfriend Chris, and the rumours she’d heard that Brenda was a notorious dog hater; but she was not able to persuade him that Brenda was the culprit. Was she just imagining things after all?

There was only one thing for it – she decided to go round to Brenda’s house on the context of borrowing a cup of honey, to see if she could pick up any more clues. To Jeannie’s surprise, her repeated knocking kicked off a great deal of barking from behind the door, and when she peered through the double glazing to take a closer look, she counted what appeared to be nine puppies of various breeds, all in small cages!

As she later related to Chris, still shaking from her subsequent confrontation with her neighbour, Jeannie could never have imagined how right she had been to be suspicious – who would have thought that Brenda was in fact a vampire who survived on dogs’ blood. Chris was fascinated and amazed at this revelation and managed to persuade Jeannie to invite Brenda to join them at that Sunday’s Hollywood Vampires concert at the O2 Arena – imagine having a real vampire alongside him while listening to his favourite band!

The evening was a great success and from then on, the three of them were firm friends; although you will not be surprised to learn that Jeannie and Chris never invited Brenda to join them when taking their new puppy Bounce for his walk in the park.