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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#25: Resolutions

Did you know that the ancient Babylonians are reported to have been the first people to make New Year's resolutions? In March, when the crops were planted, a 12-day festival known as Akitu took place. During the festival, the Babylonians made promises to their gods, and believed that if they kept to their word, they would be bestowed good favor in the coming year.

This would have been about 4,000 years ago, and while the format may be different, New Year's resolutions are still going strong!

This week's prompts all revolve around resolutions. Oh, and for that last prompt, check out this blog post for some of the most popular self-help books to inspire you.

This week's prompts

Write a short story about someone writing Valentine's Day wishes.

Valentine's Day – 49 stories

Write a short story about someone reflecting on their previous year's resolutions.

Holiday – 33 stories

Write a short story about someone who refuses to write New Year's resolutions.

Winter – 37 stories

Write a short story about someone accomplishing one of their resolutions.

Holiday – 54 stories

Write a short story about someone in the self-help aisle of a bookstore. What book do they pick up?

Short Story – 90 stories

Stories

“When the Past Meets The Future” by Bronte Detenbeck

Submitted to Contest #25

Every year, it’s the same thing. Friends gather around, clinking a vibrant glass of champagne, smiling together at the prospect of a newer, better future. Couples kiss, siblings hug, dogs bark. You really feel the magic in the air. That is; unless you’re me. Since I was 12, New Year’s has been nothing to write home about. My parents hate the holiday, and they run to go to bed at 9 every year, just to ensure that they miss the ball drop. It’s a form of protest. I don’t know when they started hating the holiday, but I do thank them for m...

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“The Path To True Happiness” by Rachael -

Submitted to Contest #25

The smell of books and hand sanitizer fill the library with a sense of comfort, but this does nothing to tame my anxiety. I'm in the self-help aisle, and I'm currently having an internal battle about whether or not I should check out anything. You see, I have depression. It's mind-numbing and leaves you desperate for relief. I don't usually get self-help books. I've never chosen to read a self-help book on my own. They seem useless.My aunt bought me one on "How To Be Confident." Oh, please. Like I'd ever become confident just because a book ...

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“Littered with armchair dreams?” by Lily Lavender

Submitted to Contest #25

Charlotte stared back at the horrific face staring at her from its place on the wall. The unusual white and brown velvet covered the antlers in a marble-like swirl and a muzzle-like face that hang over its mouth and a "bell" of skin which hang from its neck. A moose with big brown fake eyes.Imagine that being your final resting place. On a wall in the villa of a Texan millionaire. William Donnaway. Low oil prices had flatlined the growth in his fortunes, he was buying distressed assets while the nation's biggest banks were getting taxpa...

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“Pledge to the New Year ” by Laura Bartlett

Submitted to Contest #25

Bear’s feet hit the ground with a slap, slap, slap as he sprinted towards his apartment. Stupid, Stupid. He had lost track of the months as he went scrounging through the abandoned buildings for scrap parts. He had always been handy with his hands, but it had been a hobby, nothing that he thought his life would have to depend on. Bear cursed as he the thread of his sole unraveled, making him trip. His load flung from his arms as he threw them out to catch himself from face planting. His stack hit the ground with a loud bang, echoing around t...

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“The Lost Island” by Julie Le Blanc

Submitted to Contest #25

As the monster’s breath grew closer, wetter, and warmer, and the worn leather of his shoes slapped against the ancient stone, a detached part of Arthur’s brain thought that, it being the new year and all, he might like to add Refusing to Steal Idols from Ancient Temples to his list of resolutions. Arthur thought it was a great idea. The golden monkey statue stared at him with its ruby eyes. It poked its face out from the crook of his arm like one of those purse dogs, only this one was worth roughly $7 billion. The toe of his right shoe caugh...

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“Everlin” by Paige Allen

Submitted to Contest #25

I woke up in a cold sweat from yet another nightmare. I was watching TV in my living room, then I heard someone trying to get in so I ran into my room and hid in my closet. Then I seen a giant clock and sprinted for the door but my legs weren’t running fast enough and the clock was gaining on me. Once I got to the door it was locked and I was struggling trying to unlock it to open it. Once it actually opened the clock grabbed me and I jolted awake. My alarm clock was going off and it reminded me that I was about to be late for therapy. Again...

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“Lost and found” by Serein Ann

Submitted to Contest #25

It was dusk. The last rays of the sun were leaving its traces behind the high stoic mountains that she grew up seeing every day. The sky was turning into a blue-rose mixed colour of a cold early January evening. She sat outside in her porch and left all the noise behind, shut inside the doors of her house. It was freezing and she could feel the bitterness of the wind all over her face and hands but she kind of liked it. Being in nature, watching the sky that gave her hope. The sky was after all the ticket to anywhere. That what she wanted th...

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“The Magic Pen” by Migelin Benel

Submitted to Contest #25

“Thirty-two minutes,” Michael looked at his watch. That’s how much time he had lost going through each book on the self-help aisle. Are the books arranged by title or by author? Or is it just chaos? The aisle made little sense to him. When he was a child, he wouldn’t mind the delays and inefficiencies. Instead, he found joy in everything he saw and encountered. For instance, if he were still a child, he would see this as an adventure to find the buried treasure amongst the many towers of false boo...

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“This Year ” by Mary Lombardi

Submitted to Contest #25

My pen hovers above the piece of paper. Practically trembling with my plans for the year to come. This year will be the year that I turn myself around. Sure I said the same last New Year’s Eve, but this year will be different. It truly will! I will go to the gym! Finally, make use of that membership I have renewed each year hoping I will finally go. I will write a book! Finally putting together those incoherent ideas that I have dreamed into existence over the past few years into a comprehensible tale. This will be the year I kee...

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“The Wake-Up Call” by Kisha Wilson Young

Submitted to Contest #25

On November 23, just five days before her youngest daughter’s eighth birthday, Karen had died. By definition, her heart had stopped for three minutes after she had suffered a heart attack, brought on by a blockage in one of her main arteries. More than likely as a result of her high cholesterol, an unwanted hereditary risk factor she had been in denial about since diagnosis two years earlier.She remembered waking up in the unfamiliar hospital room, with the taste and smell of plastic in her throat and nose from the sterile instruments that h...

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“Unwritten Goals” by Soneal Pageot

Submitted to Contest #25

I thought about it so much this past week. My friends have the usual resolutions: "I'm going to quit smoking!", "I'm going to work out every day!", and other things that never work out after day two. I used to be that type of guy but this time, I've really thought about what I'm going to write down, what I'm going to promise myself, what I'm going to promise James.Some people use new year resolutions to post online and show people behind the screen how much fun they're having, how successful they are, and what a good role model they are. Las...

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“Someone I Loved” by Nile Kaiser

Submitted to Contest #25

7 November 2018 I met my first client today. It was a complete disaster—she almost refused to let me into her home. Under different circumstances, I think she can be a lovely old woman. She wears a shawl the size of Texas and owns enough tea to serve at least six armies. But apparently, there’s something about me which she despises. “You’re a psychologist?” &nbs...

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“An Assassin's Resolution” by Flooded Apartment

Submitted to Contest #25

Power. It is the only way to change the world, and Runar wanted it. He wanted it all - to be emperor, to control the most powerful cities in the galaxy, to have the power to conquer other planets. It had been on Runar’s New Year’s resolutions since 2722. The only problem was that Runar was not a prince. He was not even close. Runar was an assassin. The closest he had been to royalty was when he was slitting their throats or snapping their necks. But that was all going to change. In the middle of the Guilty Forest, lies the god of Time. Lege...

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“I will resolve to” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #25

I will resolve to Wanda thought that New Year’s resolutions were important. Each year she wrote them down and printed them up, so that she could check them off at the end of the year, or repeat them and try harder to stick to them the next year. That was part of the routine she had developed for December 31st . She would go through what happened during the year, would give her body a careful check (concerning the effects of desserts and beer), and see how well she had kept the resolutions from the year before. &nb...

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“The Power of Resolutions” by Tom Kottackal

Submitted to Contest #25

Alex is fourteen years old boy studying in Standard VIII. He was a hyper active person and his parents were almost fed up of helping him. They could not understand him. They gave him many guide -lines to study and behave. Unfortunately none of those was in his dictionary and so he could never keep them. Teachers failed to help him and they gave up training him. He was good at football but he would break the leg or hand of one of his companions on the ground and there would be fight regarding that. The companions used to call him by a ni...

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$50

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Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 24, 2020 EST

Won by Emily Sperber 🏆

Title: 10 Things To Do Instead of Writing New Year's Resolutions

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.

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