Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Raining cats and dogs. A short fuse. Up a creek without a paddle. A piece of cake. Sometimes colorful, sometimes puzzling without backstory or explanation, these delightful turns of phrase enrich our language—whichever one it happens to be.

This month we celebrate idioms from languages around the world. We will assign you a random idiom. (Some may not be originally English—for the non-English idioms, we will give a translation along with the original.) How you use this idiom to create a fanwork is entirely up to you. You can request your prompt by commenting here , ask on Tumblr, in the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or by emailing the mods.

Many thanks to Zdenka for her clever work on this month's banner and stamps!

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 October 2024. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.