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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#46: Write It Down

Whether you've been composing stories for years, have a number of published books under your belt, or are just getting started on your craft, if you're here to write — you're a writer.

Like our community, our prompts this week are all about writers at different stages. Maybe you'll pick the one that most relates to you at this time, one that provides a retrospective into previous legs of your writing journey, or one that looks ahead to future goals. In any case, we're looking forward to reading your words, writers.

🥇 Winner

“Turf Wars” by Cmf Wright

They don't want to reconcile. They don't want to like each other. They can't even share a pen without fighting. For the sixth time that morning, I separate the bunnies, stroke their foreheads, and whisper the universal mantra of bunny bonding: This is a happy warren. You are happy bunnies. Happy bunnies don't bite their friends. "I think you should bond them at my place," says my sister. She sits behind the pen, her trademark Moleskine in her lap—black, of course...

121 comments 121

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“The Agony of Forgetting” by Laura Clark

The last line we wrote together was utter horseshit but I can’t bring myself to delete it. The stars shone forth from his eyes like lasers. I stare at the horizontal blinking line for so long that the screen saver comes on but I still can’t hit the delete button. Drivel. Meaningless drivel. Worse, I can’t remember how serious it had been, either. Had we known ho...

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“Sequel to the Apocalypse” by Joshua Insole

1Baldahr Seltro didn’t mean to cause The Great Undead Uprising of the third century (third century post-Reckoning, that was) but cause it he did.To understand how Mr Seltro caused this slight little mishap, one must first understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom. You see, Baldahr possessed plenty of the former — bucketloads, in fact — but almost none of the latter. Intelligence, they sa...

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“dead cat” by Masha Kurbatova

I’m laying in bed, not so much a bed, a bedframe with a memory foam mattress that accelerated my spinal problems all through adolescence. The scene is familiar, it’s nightime, the yellow light bounces off yellow walls and reflects off the window and even the moon shies away, and there’s a ladybug making dumb circles around the room, droning like the teeniest fighter jet. My carpet is nasty -- I never bothered to vacuu...

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“Writers' Group Therapy” by Bowen Bowie

Writers’ Group Therapy. I wrote about the day my mother vanished because Mr Timms who ran the group said to write about something true. My mother was a woman of habit. When I walked in the door after school, she was always at the kitchen table. She was always just finishing up making a plate of cheese and gherkin sandwiches for me. She would look up as I walked in ...

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“The path to Hell” by Agathe Burrier

Lili glanced around as she helped herself to a biscuit. It wasn’t any good – rancid, and old – but she hadn’t come to him for his cooking. The air was quivering hard all around her, hot and heavy against her skin. She couldn’t make out much of her surroundings. “I heard that you’re done writing”, she said, and watched him turn around to look at her curiously. “I suppose I am”, he agreed pensively, making hi...

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“The Writer” by Beatrice Ogeh

“Carla, I need you to un-fix me.” Carla, my psychiatrist, blinks at me, head cocked so far to one side she looks like she has a spinal condition. A single crease has appeared between her two precision-plucked eyebrows. “Come again?” she asks. It’s a fair question. I started seeing Carla nearly two years ago now, at which point I was truly a dumpster fire of a person, an...

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This week's prompts:

Write a story about someone experiencing a lightbulb moment of writing inspiration.

General – 151 stories

Write a story that takes place in a writer's circle.

General – 82 stories

Write a story about an author who has just published a book.

General – 94 stories

Write a story about someone returning to their craft after a long hiatus.

General – 199 stories

Write a story about someone who has just finished writing their first story/book.

General – 145 stories

Stories

“Turf Wars” by Cmf Wright

They don't want to reconcile. They don't want to like each other. They can't even share a pen without fighting. For the sixth time that morning, I separate the bunnies, stroke their foreheads, and whisper the universal mantra of bunny bonding: This is a happy warren. You are happy bunnies. Happy bunnies don't bite their friends. "I think you should bond them at my place," says my sister. She sits behind the pen, her trademark Moleskine in her lap—black, of course...

121 comments 121

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“Blood, Sweat, and Tears.” by Batool Hussain

‘Mama’s decisive girl,’ her mother used to say. ‘You got it from your daddy. A tenacious soul he was.’ It was her daddy’s dream, after all, to see her become a writer, but God willingly, both of them left her early, too early thought Rosé. A tear streamed down her face, then another. Quickly, she wiped them away.It was when the clock struck twelve that Rosé realized it was the meeting day with Mr. Danniell. Grabbing the essential documents, she hurried down the staircase straight into the car. The hippocampus i...

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“8:46 Peaceful Assembly” by Emily Nghiem

“Single-file! Whoa, buddy, back up. Around the barrier. Everyone, Single-file!”The line captain herded us like cattle, directing traffic toward four separate sound stages. I didn’t expect a mixed team of volunteers and police to handle such a diverse crowd of thousands at the Houston rally.“How did they organize all this in three days?” I asked my friends, who had talked me into videotaping the event. Justine and Paula showed off for the camera, blowing kisses in full body paint. Justine flashe...

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“The white space between the black letters” by Roshna Rusiniya

When Mrs. Wilson, our creative writing professor announces the topic for the new writing project, there is a collective snicker all around the class. Cloud? Is she serious? We are in University, not in kindergarten!As if sensing our thoughts, she adds in a stern voice. “Now listen everyone! I am expecting a realistic portrayal of the concept. Be creative. Take risks. It’s entirely up to you. But when you bring the story tomorrow, I want to h...

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“Silver Crown” by Sophia Rose

The cold bit at his skin as the breeze hit its hardest smacking in and out tearing through the very fabric of his leather vest. On a mine in the land of the Neroshi, the snow was falling again. He looked up to the sky and felt a shiver go through his spine. He tightened his fur coat around himself. Even after spending all of his life fighting through the cold in the land blessed by Thirel, the god of the sea. Even with the blood of the First Gods running through his veins, the cold still hammered his skin and dried his lips....

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“ Deadly Writers” by Abigail Airuedomwinya

They tell me about rivers; declare it so wild and urgent until I, too, become like the river, restless, wild, important. It isn't obvious but sometimes the feeling sparks inside of me and when it does, I climb up to the hill and watch the sky and humans who look like tiny dots on the ground. There, I spread out my hands and wave out to the world and dangle it like flames, untamed. They tell me about life;...

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“Old Things ” by Abigail Airuedomwinya

It wasn't dark but it looked as though the world had died. The air smelt of garlic and a tantalizing mixture of pain and half relief. A man, troubled by the darkness from within, gazed up and let out a groan. For a moment, he stayed where he was, unmoving, dead. The sun came up and died down in one long stride but still, he sat there, as silent as tomorrow. When he moved later as the darkness settled over, it was not not...

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“Half the Truth” by A. y. R

It was on the day the stars began to die when I first met him. He knew of my future, yet I had no recollection of his past. Somehow, strangely, I knew him. Like one knows a reflection they see in the mirror. Even though he looked nothing like me, I recognized a part of myself as I looked into his eyes…*** I began trapped in the time rift, slowly decaying in my prison, the ship’s oxygen depleting. My reality was fading, and I would soon be erased from existence. I could only hope that happened...

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“Lucky For You” by Abigail Airuedomwinya

When her mother died, it was on a night when lovers got lost in complications and misunderstandings and she was standing in a chair, laughing and crying. There had been the need to write something worthwhile, the significant inspiration she had always hoped for. So at the funeral, she wrote a story that in the end, tasted sour and sweet at the same time. It wasn't a story that needed to be remembered as beautifully real ...

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“To my dearest brother” by Sophia Rose

Dear Lucas, I don’t know what to say here. I feel really stupid but you know me and you know that I can’t leave spring creek town without finally letting go of all my pain. I’m sorry that I have been running away for so long. First I want to tell you how much I love you and miss you. It’s been six years since I have seen your face. But I still remember that untidy red hair that mom always told you to comb and how dad always said you were kissed by fire, your beautiful almond-shaped eyes, your daring dimpled ...

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“Enjoy This Time” by Beinspiredabstracts/etsy Sarahgreenwood

JournalDay #1 My therapist said I should write stories about my feelings/experiences as part of a cognitive behavioral therapy. So here goes. I’ll try anything.One of my favorite activities when I was young was dragging my old things out to the curb for someone to haul away as one of their new possessions. I’d find a piece of cardboard in the g...

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“Life Saving Gift” by Corey Melin

“You have been given a gift,” Thomas said to his son, James. “The Maker has picked you.” James, who had just turned ten, looked up at his father. “You think so?” he asked him. “Definitely so,” Thomas replied and gave his son a hug. It was a couple of years ago that James started to help his father on crafting doors. Many people of the...

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“Perhaps one day...” by Twilight Bee

I felt a raindrop fall against my skin, followed by several others, but I didn't have the heart to go back inside. I moved over and sat on the edge of the roof, crossing one leg over the other, leaning back on my palms to observe the remaining constellations uncovered from the clouds. The moon hung full and hazy beneath an eclipse of blazing stars, allowing me to see the rooftops of the identically bleak buildings surrounding my own. My body was a fountain for the incoming rain, the water making my eyelids heavy. I ...

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“The End of All Days” by Izzy Kitsune

Thunk. Another book is dropped onto my desk. “This one needs to be completed by tomorrow morning”. I look up and see my boss walking away. I exhale slowly, trying to calm myself. All day, my boss had been dropping more and more books to be edited on my desk as if I wasn’t already in the middle of other books too! Not that I wasn’t grateful to have gotten this job though, not at all. I had graduated English Literature in ...

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“Everything Aiming Toward You” by Zilla Babbitt

Dear Simon, I just had to write to you. Today is cool and clean and I can smell the bees humming in the wisteria garden just outside. Their hives are so big now, so big and slick and thrumming, you would love to see them. They come buzzing out of their hives in the early morning and flood off out of the garden to the lanes beyond, winding through the yew trees and the bayberry bushes. Soon it will be ready to harvest. The little boy G...

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$50

Prize money

704

Submissions

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 19, 2020 EST

Won by Cmf Wright 🏆

Title: Turf Wars

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