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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#139: Growing Up

As March reaches its conclusion and nature comes into full bloom (at least in the Northern hemisphere), it’s a time to reflect on growth. While shoots are emerging and flowers start to bud, it’s inspiring to think how big things flourish from such small beginnings.

This week’s prompts are about just that. Whether your characters have already gone through big changes, or are just beginning them, it’s time to get growing. I’ll see you back here for the next contest, when we’ll all be one week older and, hopefully, one week wiser.

This week's prompts

Write a story that involves a character donating a box of clothes which have been outgrown.

Middle School – 49 stories

Start your story with someone having their height marked on a door frame.

Middle School – 36 stories

Format your story in the style of diary entries.

Middle School – 52 stories

Start your story with the words: “Grow up.”

Angst – 62 stories

Write about a character sowing seeds for the future (literally or figuratively).

Spring – 38 stories

Stories

“My mysterious guide.. my diary ” by Veronica Sunflower

Submitted to Contest #139

Hello diary, here I am again I have been puzzeld lately, so ... I am gone write to you again Oh my dear diary, Or whoever can here me.. Who am I, Who am I to be ? What can I do .. So I ask you ... Sometimes you give me a hint By just Beeing here ... And me writing something's down ... Sometimes I wonder am I doing something wrong . Or what is going on... Surching answers .. none found I wonder around ... In a world.. So far . So far away from humanity Do I understand them. .. Do they understand me... Why is there greed, why is there ...

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“Ellipse of Time” by Lindsey Bussie

Submitted to Contest #139

February 21 This could be the most I've written thus far in my adult life. Yay for me. EIGHT entries since January. I sense an uptick in hand cramps. At this rate I won't feel so entirely guilty over the stack of diaries I've collected that have four pages written in them with the remaining pages poised for entries that never happen. I am wrestling with my younger self. I've always wanted to be an author (and by always I mean from when I was a kid into college). You know how it starts. It starts with a love for books, a love that turns into...

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“Domestic Bliss” by Steven Green

Submitted to Contest #139

TRIGGER WARNING : This story contains descriptions of domestic abuse,in all its forms,from the beginning and throughout. February 12 Another day wearing sunglasses to the supermarket.The staff must think me pretentious,with delusions of being a movie star…or perhaps they see me for exactly what I am. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this…is the lie I tell myself every day of my life.I know I’ll put up with this until the day one of us is carried out in a box. February 14 Valentine’s Day! It was impossible to move fo...

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“The Dog That Was Called Butter” by Lucia Whitely

Submitted to Contest #139

The Dog That Was Called Butter 12th June xxxx Today was meant to be the day. The day that I had marked on my calendar with a massive red circle and had poked a hole through with my pen forcefully by mistake. Everyone kept asking me questions and it all became very stressful very quickly. My equanimity went out of the window. My friends laughed at me as I first went brick-red, then a sort of eggplant purple before ending up as a crumple on the floor like a crushed drinking can, who had to be given a glass of water and a biscuit while a ki...

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“Dear Diary, Let me be me” by Clare Knock

Submitted to Contest #139

Day 5842: I don't know why they won't just let me be, I mean, seriously, I’m not a baby anymore. They always think I will get lead down the garden path by some big bad boy in a big bad car with a big bad attitude. They don't know me at all. I absolutely would not get into that kind of trouble. 100%. Why won't they trust me. I try to talk to them, but the words don't come out right and it all gets mis-spoken and misheard, misunderstood and I usually end up in tears. Then I'm suddenly the emotional one. I don't know why I bother sometimes...

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“DINNER” by Annie R McEwen

Submitted to Contest #139

Maureen J. Patrick 1350 words 3411 W. Bay Ave. Tampa, FL 33611...

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“Forever Unspoken” by Michelle Thomas

Submitted to Contest #139

TW: mention of alcohol use and abuse. ************************************* “Grow up.” Those were the last words my father ever said to me before I left for college. The last words he ever said to me before I left this world and joined my mother in the afterlife. Our relationship had been rocky since my mother passed when I was thirteen. The night of my thirteenth birthday, my mother and I had collided with a drunk driver on our way home from the local art gallery. It was a head on collision and I was the sole survivor. I had spent...

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“all part of growing up” by Summer C

Submitted to Contest #139

"Grow up. Grow UP. You have to grow up", they always say. I don't want to grow up. What's the point in maturing. To be exposed to more pain and suffering? To realise that the world isn't like how the fairy tales said it would be? To know that you'll never be enough, despite your desperate attempts to live up to society's standards? I'm not ready to leave my childhood behind. The warm, joyful, carefree days. I miss running across a wide open field feeling as though I had the world beneath my feet. I want to be able to think of all the t...

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“Confessions of a Co-Dependent” by Donavan Barrier

Submitted to Contest #139

(Note: This story deals with codependency, alcoholism and death) “Grow up!” That was what we told you, didn’t we? Time and time again. It was like a catchphrase from the old cartoons. We said it so much it was as if we couldn’t end the day if we didn’t say it. So we did. Jesus, man, I can’t count how many times we’ve said that to you. I bet you really got sick of it after a while, eh? Who am I kidding? I know you did! Otherwise, how could I be standing here and you there? I hate that we’re in this ...

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“Daphne” by Barbara Burgess

Submitted to Contest #139

Grow up, she said in her letter. Her words cut deep and upset me. I thought she was my best, my one and only friend. I thought she was the person I could turn to when I needed someone.There was nobody at work I could talk to or even wanted to talk to. Granny, Auntie, Uncle and Cousin Bob who I was living with at the time were not the conversational type and so I could not turn to them either.I felt lost and alone.I wrote to Daphne and told her I felt like a bird with a broken wing. In my mind, I imagined a Blackbird with one wing dangling li...

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“Am I free?” by Lingling Yu

Submitted to Contest #139

“You need to grow up” My mother always told me that. So did my father, and the kids at school. Even the teachers told me so. They all told me that I needed to grow up. So I did. I stared at myself in the mirror, my hair was no longer in small braids with butterfly clips, it was curled and in a pony tail. my lips was no longer covered in bits of chocolate but tainted light red. I looked into my own brown eyes, ‘Who am I?’. Because I was no longer the girl who laughed when I was running, who found everything pretty, who loved to dress in all...

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“The Tides that Turn” by Missy Webb

Submitted to Contest #139

“Grow up” A faint cry from the next room pings her ears like the signal off a cell tower. Both feet hit the floor and she is approaching the source of the sound faster than speed dial. It does not phase her; she is focused yet in a daze from having been awoken at 2 in the morning. Instinctually she scoops up the crying infant and breast in hand offers of herself the nectar that soothes all pangs. All righteousness and holiness have been restored and once again the house returned to a peaceful state with only the sweet sound of a baby cooing...

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“Grow Up” by Liam Murphy

Submitted to Contest #139

Grow up” my dad, John, snarled down at me. “Grow up and try being a man and stop behaving like a snivelling cowardly little excuse for one.” John Hardaker, my dad, was a tall brute of a man and that was the only piece of paternal advice I ever got from him. But I was only ten years old at the time and all I wanted to do was run to my mum’s comforting embrace and cry. In my father’s world “only sissies and poofters cried.” I guess it would be fair to say my dad was old school in his thinking on the order of things like gender and role modelli...

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“Black and blue and yellow and green ” by Lydia Lim

Submitted to Contest #139

“Grow up.” My father says when I come home with stuffed toys. “Grow up.” My mother says when I refuse to go to school. “Grow up.” My friends say when I tell them I’m tired, tired of everything, tired of nothing. I wish I could grow up. I want to grow up to be a tall strong man who is always invited out for drinks with his friends but often has to decline with a booming laugh because his wife and three kids are at home. I want to grow up to be a man who will be applauded and cheered when he gets promoted. I want to be some...

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“The less perilous path....” by Richard Woods

Submitted to Contest #139

“Grow up!” He barked it like he meant it, as if he could control how anything grew. He had stood there for some time before he spoke and I wondered if he would ever make a sound. He looked so intense, as if his glare might produce the desired result. We were in the living room . Well, that's what we called it but living wasn't much done in reality. My family was well, how shall I put it? Taciturn? Yes that will do, though it would have my grumpy father reaching for a dictionary. Always assuming there was one in the house. Or that he knew whe...

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$250

Prize money

236

Contest entries

135

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 01, 2022 EST

Won by Alex Sultan 🏆

Title: buried in saipan

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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