#dashielldeveron

Your stepmother decides that the only way to keep the family millinery open is to send you and your sisters off to apprentice somewhere profitable. You get stuck in the hat shop. Even though they’re not satisfied with their assignments, your sisters, at least, get to leave the house. Sprint for ten minutes, because your life surely isn’t going anywhere.

If you reached the word count below, you overhear about the mysterious Wizard Howl and how he kidnaps beautiful girls to eat their hearts, and that will never hold significance for you. If you don’t reach it, sprint for seven minutes while your stepmother teaches you how to sell a hat to a customer.

Youngest: 375 words Middle: 685 words Eldest: 950 words

Making hats is boring. You talk to them as if they were people, because yeah, like you’re going to step outside.

• If you chose the hat that was all veiling with hidden twinkles, you have a mysterious allure. Write 550 words. • If you chose the creamy hat with roses under the brim, you have to marry into money. Write 700 words. • If you chose the mushroom pleated bonnet, you have a heart of gold, and someone in a high position will fall in love with you. Write 1000 words.

You’re a little depressed that none of them look nice on you. On May Day, you decide to go see your sister Lettie, who was sent to apprentice at a local bakery. You’re scared stiff. You run into a pretentious blond, and you dash into the crowded bakery. Write to the next multiple of 300 while you push your way to the front counter.

Lettie pulls you aside to tell you that she’s not Lettie. Using magic to disguise themselves, she and your sister Martha swopped places of apprenticeship. Sprint for 15 minutes while you jump to conclusions.

If you reach the word count, you take Martha’s advice to stand up for yourself when you get home. If you fail, you stumble around your words in a pathetic way. Type for five minutes with your eyes closed.

Youngest: 580 Middle: 880 Eldest: 1250

A glamourous woman walks into your shop. Her tastes are too highfalutin for your shop. You’re tacky, and she hates you.

• If you are the youngest or middle child, you try to sell her the mushroom hat. Allow your writing to suck for a solid 25 minutes. • If you are the eldest child, you sass her despite her henchman’s nervous gesturing behind her back. You done screwed up, son. Write 2500 in 30 minutes.

Oh, mother—that was the Witch of the Waste, the most diabolical mind this side of paradise, and she’s cursed you with old age. You now have the body of a 90-year-old, and you can’t let your family know about this. Your joints may ache, but you’ve got to go out into the world to make your fortune. Man, these hills are unforgiving. Write for a leisurely 35 minutes as you slowly head out into the waste.

If you reach the word count, you happen upon Howl’s castle. If you don’t you write 300 words while you wander about in the mist.

Youngest: 750 Middle: 999 Eldest: 1300

You barge into the moving castle, which is a bit of a dump, and Howl is out. Instead, you meet his apprentice, Michael. You also meet a fire demon, Calcifer, who can tell that you’re under a spell. He convinces you to break his contract with Howl in exchange for breaking your curse. For some reason, Calcifer tells you that Howl is quite heartless. You didn’t need to be told; have you seen the inside of this castle? It’s filthy. Clearly someone who treats a castle like this would be heartless. Anyway. Do a three digit challenge while Michael tries to get you to leave.

In the morning, you bully Calcifer into bending down his head for you so that you can cook breakfast. No one but Howl is supposed to be able to do that. You’re distracted by the bacon, so you don’t notice Howl come in until it’s too late—and oh no he’s hot. You say Calcifer hired you as the cleaning lady. Write for 10 minutes while Howl moans about how much he loves the filth.

You’re determined to be the very best cleaning lady, like no one ever was, but you get distracted by his magical door.

• Porthaven Door: The king sends his thanks for the seven league boots. Write seven times the last two digits of your word count. • Kingbury Door: A girl shows up for the safety spell for her dad’s boat. Write for 15 minutes using precise phrasing, because you’re going to spread rumours about being a witch if you don’t stop saying the wrong things. • Market Chipping Door: Your stepmother can’t know you’re here. Write 849 words, which is how many times in the past month she’s ignored your opinion. • What the Frick Frackle’s Behind That Door, Howl?: Death. Death and destruction. Death, destruction, and Secret Wales. Write to the next multiple of 3000.

Howl doesn’t want you to clean anything. The filth is his friend. He loves the spiders. You think he’s a sick jerk. Sprint to 350.

The girl who bought the mushroom hat has run off with a count—like you with your word count. Write for 20 minutes without using be verbs. If you chose the mushroom hat earlier, you may skip this step.

Calcifer and Michael tell you about Howl’s romantic exploits. He’ll start courting a girl, and then he’ll get bored with her as soon as she returns his affections. Calcifer then goes into Howl’s beauty routine, and he uses more products on his face than you do. Howl rushes downstairs from the bathroom and yells at you for organising his bathroom supplies, because now his hair is ginger. He calls upon the spirits of darkness. Sprint for 15 minutes while you try to fix this.

When Howl is in his right mind, he tells you that he’s in love with Lettie, who is, as you found out earlier, actually Martha. Not your sister, dang it! Plus, there’s this mad scarecrow following the castle. What luck. Take a leisurely twenty minutes as you make a plan.

But Howl isn’t in love with Martha, it turns out. Michael shows up with a cake from the bakery and says that he’s in love with Lettie. Lettie from the cake shop. You’re so confused. Huh. Howl tells you that he’s weaselled out of finding the lost prince over a piece of cake. You decide to go visit the real Lettie at her magic apprenticeship, and you steal some seven league boots. Write 475 words.

The real Lettie knows that Howl is courting her, and she’s knows exactly what she’s doing. Oops. You go home to help Michael with a spell that is suspiciously like John Donne’s “Song”. Howl is pissed at you for trying to catch a fallen star, just as the poem says. Sprint to 500.

Howl takes you to through the fourth door to Secret Wales. His family is rotten, but he loves them. You track down Miss Angorian, who tells you another part of “Song”. She makes you feel uneasy, especially when she talks about her missing fiancé, Ben Sullivan. 10 minute word war!

Howl wants to avoid responsibility, so he sends you to blacken his name. You go to an old teacher and the King of Ingary. Write for an hour.

If you hit the word count, you successfully make Howl seem like a terribly lazy and irresponsible person, which he is. If you don’t, you run into the Witch of the Waste and have to double back. Write until you’ve doubled what you wrote in the hour.

Youngest: 1000 Middle: 3000 Eldest: 5000

After a brawl in town. The Witch of the Waste has caught up with Howl. He hurriedly forces Calcifer to move the castle, and the red setter that you’ve picked up does not like the magic. Calcifer is rooted in this rock-like object when Howl moves him, and moving the castle means more doors!

• Market Chipping Door: You’re back in your childhood home. Write a scene that is inspired by something in your childhood, because write what you know, you know? • The Mansion: Weed killer time! Delete that fluff you wrote out of desperation. • Meadow on the Edge of the Waste: Look at all these flowers, man. So pretty. Put a bouquet of flowers into your next scene. • Secret Wales Door: Howl plays rugby? Oh, er. Okay. Write for six minutes about something about which you know nothing.

Howl starts courting Miss Angorian to avoid looking for the lost prince, and you figure out that Calcifer was once a falling star that Howl caught. The scarecrow won’t leave you alone, and it creeps you out. Do a three digit challenge.

The red setter you picked up is actually a human under a curse. You call him Percival. Percival says the Witch of the Waste had his head on a shelf for a long time. By all accounts, it makes no sense. And then Howl goes to say that he knew you were cursed all along! What the heck? That jerk. Sprint for 20 minutes while you insult him with everything you’ve got.

Howl goes out drinking with his Rugby team and comes home, as he so eloquently phrases it, “cone sold stober”. The scarecrow catches up with Percival, for whom he has been looking, and says something about missing parts. In his inebriated state, Howl has been tricked by the Witch of the Waste, and she now has Miss Angorian as captive in the Waste. Write 3 percent of your word count.

You go to the Witch’s lair to save Miss Angorian. You dodge some vicious, orange blobs, and the Witch shows you a headless body. She tells you it’s a perfect conglomeration of the bodies of the missing prince and missing Wizard Sullivan. All she needs now is the head of Howl to make the perfect King of Ingary, and the Witch shall be his queen. Do a Fifty Headed Hydra to effectively inform her that she’s mad, which you do by fighting her with a stick.

Holy crap it worked thank God. Howl shows up, and the two of you figure out not only that Percival is made of body parts of the prince and Sullivan (lol I know) but also that Miss Angorian is a demon working for the Witch. You rush back to the castle to find her squeezing Calcifer—attached to Howl’s heart—in her hand. All of the “Song” spell has come true. You have to break the spell to save Howl and Calcifer. Write until you hit the next checkpoint below.

Youngest: the next 2,000 word checkpoint Middle: the next 5,000 word checkpoint Eldest: the next 10,000 word checkpoint