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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#146: Getting to Know You (And Me)

Mental Health Awareness Week may be coming to a close, but it’s always a good time to reflect and try to treat one another with a little more understanding — even when our experiences aren’t the same.

Of course, understanding others is part of the job description for writers, or else how would we create our characters? With that in mind, let’s explore what it means to build connection with others (and ourselves), and the different types of reflection that may be required along the way.

This week's prompts

Write from the point of view of a character writing a letter to their past or future self.

Character – 70 stories

Write about a character attempting to meditate or do something mindfully.

Narrative – 38 stories

Set your story in an unlikely sanctuary.

High School – 34 stories

Write about a character discovering a surprising strength in either themself or another.

Character – 56 stories

Start your story during a team building exercise.

Adults – 17 stories

Stories

“The Girl Without a Self” by Omri R.

Submitted to Contest #146

The girl without a self woke and stared at the honesty of the world. She tried to calm her soul. She went over her stories, the lines of the book, the etchings of the universe, because it is times like these, when the world drip, drip, drips with neither the love nor its opposite but rather simple beauty, that she begins to think. And I guess when you start to think about it you really can’t stop. The sky or the hole that encompasses her little world is painted with colors of sincerity and sprinkled with small bursts of indifference – indiff...

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“I'll Just Jog Instead” by Laura Eliz

Submitted to Contest #146

I hate moving. Boxes start to pile up, and soon there is no place to work out. It would be a month before my move, but, boxes were piling up. The only space I had anymore was my kitchen and bedroom. My work out time, and my self-care time are essential. When you live with mental health struggles, it is important to find a coping skill you enjoy, especially if you decide to not go the medication route. For me, I just enjoy a fun dance work out, some yoga, jogging, and my scented witchy bath products for doing bath magic. When I do not get som...

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“The Muffin lion” by Joshua Warrick

Submitted to Contest #146

There once was a Lion who lived in the plains of Africa Who loves the muffins. Every day he will raid The pastry store for his daily ration of muffins. Than the Lion smile “They won’t know if I took a little, more” the more he took the greedier he got.At first he took a little, but every day It grew more and more. The other animals, his friends warned him. Mr. Elephant “Come buddy, what do you think you’re doing. Come and join us and have a Buffet of fruit” The lion shook his head no. Mr. Lion smiled “I’ll be fine don’t you worry I’ll g...

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“A Sheep in Woolf's Clothing” by Michael Maceira

Submitted to Contest #146

Virginia Woolf valorizes the present. Why can’t I? That thought bubbled up one humid morning as I stopped, in a rush-hour fugue state, and picked up a thin, ivory pamphlet from the train station floor. It laid on its back like a wounded animal – I connected with that. It outlined the practice of meditation. The edges were torn and folded, and the sketch of the sitting monk was Xeroxed in an ancient, American fashion. Whoever had it wasn’t very mindful. It said, “Watching one’s breath symbolizes the relativity of voluntary and involuntary eve...

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“The Diary of a Loner” by Pyper Payton

Submitted to Contest #146

February 1, 2015 - Ok, I guess I will start off with my name. Hello, I am Analia, and all of my life I have been trying to understand myself, especially when I was younger. I have always been the weird outsider that could never make any friends. I tried but I either got too scared or thought they secretly did not like me and it caused me great anxiety. Let’s be honest, a lot of things cause me anxiety. Some might say I had the perfect childhood and I agree but only to a certain extent. The older I get I start to worry that somehow I missed a...

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“The Confession” by Lydia Agostinho

Submitted to Contest #146

Trigger warning: Sexual violence, mental healthI tried it all. First it was yoga– ashtanga, kundalini, iyengar, bikram. I even got my teacher training in kundalini yoga and taught for a few years. But I gradually lost interest in yoga after figuring out most of the gurus I idolized were accused of sexual misconduct with their followers. I guess I could have just done the yoga without idolizing the gurus, but one meant nothing without the other. It wasn’t about the postures, it was about the community, and that community had a definite leader...

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“Mindfulness for the Magically Inclined” by Zak Burchell

Submitted to Contest #146

CW: Gore, Language I fumbled in the dark until the match found a spark. Light danced softly on the walls of the room, revealing the warding sigils scrawled on every surface. The shelves had been stripped of books - which now lay sprawled across the floor and bed. I touched the flame to candle wicks, illuminating the room with a dim glow. A searing heat brushed my fingers as the flame grew to the edge of the match, and I dropped it with a gasp. I stamped it out with my shoe, dusting the floor with ash. Magic is a tricky thing- my kind of ...

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“The Unlikely Outlet Into my Life” by Nichole Cormier

Submitted to Contest #146

It was like looking through a window. The young woman looking back just didn't remind me of something familiar. Not right away anyhow. Somehow; I was strange to myself. I was unsure of how this had come to my mind, but it was there none the less. It was somehow surreal. It was a mystery to my thoughts. It was like I was there but unable to reach myself. I couldn't even begin to understand why this was. Not in these moments that I'm standing there and looking at myself in the mirror. Only it isn't a mirror and I'm not standing. I'm sitting ...

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“Escape From Waverly Hills Sanitorium ” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #146

He was a patient at the Kentucky Waverly Hills Sanitorium where the walls are still stained with blood in some places and the ghosts of former patients still wander the halls. The police surrounded the abandoned building that had closed its doors in 1961 after multiple reports of patient abuse and maltreatment using electroshock as punishment and frontal lobotomies to placate those patients with a record of violent or any sort of antisocial behavior. Looking down on the scramble of activity in the courtyard in front of th...

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“Catching My Breath” by Betsy T

Submitted to Contest #146

It’s supposed to rain early in the morning, so I load up my car the night before check out. I move quickly because it’s cold out, carrying one bin at a time down the dark side path to the main driveway where my car is parked. For two weeks I’ve been renting a small cottage in the back of a beautiful large home in the Southern California woods, a few miles from my own home. The cottage has a studio layout where the kitchen is visible from the bed. There is a small back room with a desk and a bunk bed where my kids slept on the days I ...

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“Are You Going to Be Long?” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #146

“Are you going to be long?’ “I think maybe so. I have a lot of work to do here. I can’t rush it” “Okay, I’ll go downstairs then.” This interchange has become something of a ritual between my wife and me. We’ve even performed it in our local bar, much to the laughing delight of some of the customers who know us well, and know about my strange writer’s sanctuary. The Ritual Begins The ritual had something of a strange beginning (as if the continuance of i...

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“We take what remains” by Ava Raim

Submitted to Contest #146

The cool wind whistles through the narrow passageways, paradoxically causing a trickle of sweat to drip down my back. A storm is coming, and there is no way to predict the damage it will leave in its wake.The everpresent dust swirls upwards in thick motes, making me cough uncontrollably. I squeeze my eyes tight, knowing what is about to happen. This is a bad one. After nine weeks, five days, seven hours, twenty-eight minutes, and who knows how many seconds, I’ve learned to tell the difference between a brief stirring of the air around me and...

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“Almost a Year” by William Nielsen

Submitted to Contest #146

Sensitive content warning: reference to self-harm and suicide, reference to alcohol/substance abuse. Paige sat herself down on the rocky riverbank. Her legs dangled over the edge, swinging idle over the torrent of water flowing by, and by, and by… The sun had been making its slow descent, teetering down to dance along the horizon, the evening stretched out for a near-impossible number of hours by the northern latitude. Ducks splashed in the river, diving and rising to break through the water’s surface. A loon called in the distance, its ...

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“The Onerous Journey” by Karen Leidy

Submitted to Contest #146

The Onerous Journey I had been peregrinating for four days through the western wilderness, and the weather remained unusually mild for this geographical location. This is a cleansing journey to wash away all remnants of my past and my miserable, innumerable failures. Literally everything I ever attempted to accomplish deteriorated—not just a tiny sample of personal inadequacies, but a total fiasco. I loathe every minute particle of my useless existence and abhorrent self, and have elected to stay clear of the human race for the remainder ...

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“Legend.” by Andrew Hamrick

Submitted to Contest #146

Legend Bench seats covered in dark green laminate type stuff. The green covers the brown laminate stuff that would get hot and burn. The green gets hot but stops before your legs turn red. The green does have a bad aftertaste unlike the brown which had almost zero, just a hint of gum or candy that may have been touching it last. The gum on the floor and under the seats add texture and color. A bit of squish if recent and soon to be a hard immovable mass if it's been a week or so. The runway down the middle is silver with black...

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$250

Prize money

215

Contest entries

134

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 20, 2022 EST

Won by Michał Przywara 🏆

Title: 10 Days to Mindfulness

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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