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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#179: Levelling Up

New Year's Eve is a time for celebration, but it also marks a watershed. If there's something you've been wanting to achieve, but haven't quite found the time (or willpower) to make happen, the start of a new year can be the perfect moment to turn over a new leaf.

This week's prompts are all in the spirit of progress. Whether your characters are starting an entirely new life, or are making a tiny shift in the pursuit of happiness, it's time for change. And if your New Year's resolution involves getting back into your writing routine after the holiday haze, we hope they'll provide ample inspiration to jumpstart your creativity. We'll see you in 2023!

This week's prompts

Start your story with someone making a vision board.

Adults – 17 stories

Write a story in the form of a list of New Year's resolutions.

Holiday – 38 stories

Your character always makes the same promise; to change. Will they finally make it happen this time?

Angst – 44 stories

Write a story about someone scrambling on New Year's Eve to fulfil their resolutions for the entire year before the clock strikes twelve.

Funny – 28 stories

End your story with a kiss at midnight.

Romance – 73 stories

Stories

“New Year, New (Dead) You” by Martin Schray

Submitted to Contest #179

Michael hauled another overflowing box to the curb and checked the time. It was 11:30 am. He’d been working for two hours, but two centuries felt like a more accurate description of the time spent. His arms felt like they were being used as pincushions, and if his back felt like his grandpa’s usually did, then he now understood why he complained about it so much. Michael’s eleven-year-old body coursed with exhaustion as he wiped a river of sweat from his forehead and took a quick moment to regret offering to help his friend, Joshua, clean ou...

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“Burial” by Lily Hall

Submitted to Contest #179

My mother was dead, and only now did I know. As I watched from the battered living room archway while she popped the cork to her second bottle that night and filled the contents of some stale yellowed glass, I numbly buzzed. My emotions were delayed, stuck like a dammed river in my mind. Their waters were still and stopped up with a mix of betrayal and hurt, but I could feel somewhere far down in the bottom of the river in the sediment of my conscience, there lay guilty relief. Relief that this would all be over, and each time I inhaled, the...

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“The Land of Blue Trees ” by Belac Nemo

Submitted to Contest #179

It's a new year, but nothing has really changed. At least not for me. I'm still just rambling through life with no real aim. No "guiding star" as the motivational speakers love to tote. I don't even remember how it got this way, I'm not stupid, it's not ambition I lack, it wasn't a bad childhood either. But I'm sitting on this train all the same, empty. I quit my job back in the states a few days ago, and I used some of the money I had saved up to fly to Tokyo. And I don't know a lick of Japanese. ...

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“All we need is a little help.” by Dunbarin Fadairo

Submitted to Contest #179

It's the first day of the new year, Maya was sleeping soundly when she was awoken by the sound of clattering bottles. She lets out an exhausted sigh as she pushes herself out of bed, she grabs her robe from the place it hangs behind her door and puts it on, then walks out of her room. As she walked down the hallway, she heard the sound of the dryer running. She stalked closer to the living room where she was sure she'd find her father passed out in a pile of empty liquor bottles and trash, but instead she found nothing, in fact, it was clean...

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“Shot in the Light” by Clayton Musick

Submitted to Contest #179

“Let me read this part, Daddy.” Christopher stuck the corner of the book page underneath his fingernail and watched as the white sheet picked up the black from underneath his nail. “Ew! Chris! What have I told you about doing that?” Christopher’s face scrunched in towards his nose like a French pastry, with a wisp of blonde hair on top. His elated laugh resonated throughout the little living room and echoed, as if in convection currents-- hahaha down to the floor, and hahaha up to the ceiling. He was six years old, and the spit...

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“I NEED TO CHANGE MY TUNE” by Debbie Curtin

Submitted to Contest #179

I want to do it, I have to do it, I must do it. OR ELSE! Listening to this same tune on the same album has been like riding a thoroughbred on the longest racetrack EVER! In my head, it just went around and around like loopy loops all day long. And here we are, same page different year. It's the last train to Nashville or whatever that song is, which is now stuck on autopilot. Change is not only that loose stuff in your pocket, but a purpose you set as your goal to achieve a major milestone. It's one that I certainly have put off for a few ye...

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“CHICKEN PINEAPPLE PIZZA FOR NEW YEAR'S” by Kasey Fisher

Submitted to Contest #179

I swiped on my last layer of mascara, mentally going through the days to do list. Drop Evie off with the babysitter, go to work, pawn that damn wedding ring, pick Evie up, go home.My dad finally left my mom eight months ago, retired from the police force, and has been traveling for months. I can’t believe he stayed that long; I would’ve left her decades ago. But he chose unhappiness, pumped out two kids, and successfully screwed us up. My alcoholic brother was recently kicked out of college, and then me, disappointed with my parents, disappo...

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“Evendella’s Commision” by Curtis Jackson

Submitted to Contest #179

Thematic content includes parental abandonment, child mortality, conveyance of criminal activity, immoral infringements, and violence. He scuffled a handful of Adams' Cheese Korn Kurls from the crinkled bag; a few spilled between his fingers onto the flooring behind the accelerator and brake petals. Hadrian hated when that happened inside his Pontiac Streamliner, especially after he cleaned it. Rolling down the window, the solstice chill whipped against the side of his face, and his leathered jacketed arm reached around to the tip of the win...

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“THE CLOCK STRIKES TWELVE MY PRINCE IS WAITING” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #179

Reflection, a time to look back on a year that was filled with so many amazing moments and moments that weren't amazing. A time to move foreword, to look to a New Year for new beginnings. My name is Jaylen, 2022 for me was a year filled with so many ups and downs. Now as I sit here in my apartment looking out of the window watching the world get ready for the New Year, I look back on the year that was and get ready for the year to come. The year began like any other year with a big party, lots of good food, lots of drinking and lots of d...

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“About Time” by Christina Avery

Submitted to Contest #179

The castle was crowded. Cinderella stood in a corner of the ballroom on a dais. As she looked out over the crowd she saw his head and shoulders bobbing up and down in the lively Minuet. His royal highness was dancing with a blonde and blue-eyed thing that looked like she weighed no more than a feather. Cinderella shook herself and looked in the opposite direction. Why hadn’t the Prince noticed her? She knew her own fairytale by heart, and being stuck living it on repeat had made her particularly familiar with the details of it. So then why i...

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“A New Beginning” by Maya Wen

Submitted to Contest #179

Cinderella stepped down the staircase, picking up her baby blue ball gown, daintily stepping towards her dear Prince Charming. It was the day they were getting married, a happy day for almost everyone. There was a large crowd waiting for her to make her vows to the prince, and everyone was chatting about her poor origin story. Cinderella looked up, smiling at the prince, who looked dashing as always. As she walked on, she caught a glimpse of a familiar man in the corner of her eye. She stopped and looked at him. He gave a sad smile and looke...

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“The Dream Catcher and His Wife” by Timmy W

Submitted to Contest #179

Late at night, loud laughter emanates from the club where people cheer and talk loudly while the barman pours drink after drink. The door swings open and a man steps in. He is dressed all in black with a ski mask hiding his face and a revolver at his belt. He stands just inside the doorway, head held high while the disco lights blare and deafening music plays. Without warning, he pulls out his revolver and the whole room falls silent. He aims the gun at the barman’s heart and fires. The barman is dead before his head hits the floor, one hand...

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“End Out the Year” by Connie Hieb

Submitted to Contest #179

Ending Out the Year By Connie Hieb 01.05.2023 Hi! My name is Baylee and I am an older lady, whom lost her soul mate, best friend, and husband several years ago. I raised our young son Onzee, without his best buddy, Daddy. It wasn’t easy at all for either of us. In Onzee’s teenage years, he still referred to my husband as Daddy. That is all he knew him by, he also had a Cedar box I had given him to store his treasures of him and his Daddy, and he called it his Daddy box. So many had opinions on how to raise a young boy wi...

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“Empty Promises” by Theodore Place

Submitted to Contest #179

“Woohoo!” someone shouted over the loud music that blared through Luke’s house. The floor thumped from the jumping of his guests dancing in time to the latest mainstream hit to become a staple at the local nightclub after Luke’s ex-boyfriend performed a show-stopping lip-sync to it during his latest drag performance. Luke internally groaned from how many times he’d heard that song. And then he frowned when he saw that the door to his workroom was cracked open, despite the sign on the door that said DO NOT ENTER. He assumed it was said e...

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“"Hey, Look What I Got!" ” by Zoya Vats

Submitted to Contest #179

“Hey, look what I got!” Claire ran to her open-armed mother and accepted the offering, embracing the warmth as the feeling of glee overtook her completely. She would never let herself forget the happiness her mom’s touch would give her, the blanket of comfort and security it created; a safe haven. Every so often, the young girl let herself imagine the absence of such familiarity. Being stripped of all she knew, being left alone to fend for herself. Perhaps she would no longer remain in the same reality, perhaps the truancy of her everyday li...

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$250

Prize money

200

Contest entries

103

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 06, 2023 EST

Won by Saeda Rose 🏆

Title: Resolute

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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