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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#78: Keeping Busy

I’ve noticed that hobbies often get overlooked in fiction. Unless it plays a major role in the plot, many main characters don’t even get a hobby — supporting characters, even less often. Yet hobbies are an important part of many people’s lives, especially in lockdown. They’re the things we bond with our friends over, the pastimes that refresh our spirits over the weekend, and the activities that give us some of our greatest joy.

So this week, hobbies are going to take center stage. From mainstream to obscure, let’s analyze our character’s most interesting quirks and explore the many things they can obsess over!

This week's prompts

Start your story with one character trying to convince another to take up their favorite hobby.

Fluff – 177 stories

Write about someone who keeps an unusual animal as a pet.

Teens – 178 stories

Write about someone who still practices a skill that used to be necessary but has long since been replaced by technology.

Fiction – 133 stories

Set your story at a convention for a hobby most people have never heard of.

Fluff – 70 stories

Write about someone who keeps picking up different hobbies but never manages to stick with them.

Character – 176 stories

Stories

“What Is Freedom?” by Estelle Westley

Submitted to Contest #78

"I am here under lock and key and the world looks down on me, so why do I not feel the chains." Jamie Wright was serving a ten year jail sentence. This was year number six. He looked around his cell. Just the bare necessities. He lay down on his bunk with fingers entwined behind his head. Seven years ago my life had been so different. There were parties and girls any time of the week. Always noise. Always busy wheeling and dealing. Always on the move. Lilly would get so annoyed with me when I was late and didn't even get to kiss the...

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“Sleight” by Caleb Kuether

Submitted to Contest #78

Sleight Freddy Biggs sat in his country farm house feeling pretty small and thinking about the good old days. The radio played as he drank a glass of scotch and stared intently at his front door. Such were the extent of his days.Freddy kept a toothpick in his mouth whenever he wasn’t smoking, even though he only had but a few teeth to speak of. He carried a Colt Peacemaker at his side. It was the type of gun people hadn’t seen slung in about forty years or so. That was back in wilder times. His amputated left hand lay comfortably on his...

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“THE HOBBIES” by Mary Kurpiewski

Submitted to Contest #78

After my father-in-law, Tat, as we lovingly called him, retired as a welder from the Navy Yard, he took up many interests and hobbies. Tat always was a handy-man who could put in walls, floors and he loved re-modeling anything. But, he would go overboard with each hobby. He was into gold fish for a while. The various species were beautiful, but I could not breathe in his family room with all the fish tanks and smells and bubbling noises. After a few bouts of sea-sickness-the fish left! Then he got into homing and carrier pigeons. He raced ...

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“Forgotten Era” by Arathi Raghuveer

Submitted to Contest #78

“Ramen, did you see my cane basket, I had put it in the store, so that I could use it whenever necessary” said Gracy. She was a bit worried; it was her favourite cane basket which she used to put her fresh fruits so that they stayed fresh for a longer period. “I had a collection of cane baskets and pottery which I brought from India last summer” “Where did you put those, my dear?” asked Gracy. “Oh, those unworthy things I have thrown them in the junkyard, I felt they were useless” said Ramen. “They don’t fit in here, they look old...

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“Hobby:Smiles” by Debbie Stelzle

Submitted to Contest #78

I'm a journalist for a weekly local magazine. I explore people's unique hobbies. The editors revealed that his son who collects stamps requested to go to the hobbies convention next week. I proposed to the editor perchance I'll encounter unconventional hobbies. Strolling past some stations there were a lot of conventional hobbies such as stamps, toy trucks, and rocks. In this situation, it would thrill me pardon the pun a diamond in the rough. Something caught my eye, something was flashing it was a giant flat-screen TV 81 inches (ca. 2.06 m...

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“Hubert's Pet” by David Dicaire

Submitted to Contest #78

Hubert’s Pet Alice Moore was perched slightly behind the curtains armed with a pair of binoculars. It was ten in the morning and right on cue Hubert Rainbrough the neighbour who lived across the concession road on the same farm that he had been born and raised walked out of the house with a brown bag clutched in his right hand. “What could he possibly have in that brown bag?” “Why don’t you call him up and ask him that way you won’t lose any sleep over it?” Her husband Ed said behind the morning newspaper. That irr...

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“Knit, Tink” by Maya Ad Astra

Submitted to Contest #78

The Prince’s Ball is a dreadfully boring affair. It’s too bad that I am the only one in the whole kingdom that can’t get out of it. “Calloway, dear. Please put on a smile, my love,” My mother, Queen Hazel Simone of Sairence said. To my father, King Ellington, she said, “You would think we were sending him to the gallows.” We gathered next to Ambrose who would be announcing our arrival “Happy faces,” she warned. He blew obnoxiously into his trumpet. Once a hush fell on the gathered guests, Ambrose boomed, “His Majesty King Ellington, H...

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“Evan's Hobby” by Brittani Case

Submitted to Contest #78

Hobbies…who needs them? What are they for? Do they really serve a purpose, or do they just take up time? Aren’t they something old people do, or maybe a mother with too much time on her hands? Either way, for my friend, Evan, he thought they were a waste of time. As we sat at the table in the hospital cafeteria, he was complaining about having nothing to do for the weekend. I rolled my eyes and studied his facial expressions as he talked about different...

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“The ingenuity of a hillbilly gangsta ma” by Bodhi Ganesh

Submitted to Contest #78

"Thank you for the invitation to come over and to spend some time hanging out with you at your home Katrina. It is good to get out of the house, and away from my keyboard," I said. "I'm beginning to feel as though all that I do is write. It's a good thing to be here and to be graced by the altruism that emanates from your personality, and to be in the relentless comfort of your merciful self." "I wish to write the highest ode to your presence," I say with a familiar sarcastic tone to Katrina. "Smartass," She replies. "Are you hungry Bodhi?" ...

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“Animal Calls, an Unlikely Hobby” by Morgan Douglas

Submitted to Contest #78

An important event that Kara had hoped to create and host was finally coming to fruition. She had planned out a convention for a hobby that she had explored since she was in middle school. Her classmates and friends thought she was weird and poked fun. Kara didn’t care though, she loved following her passions and thought that the ridicule was not worth worrying about. As she was setting up the decorations in the recreation hall, she thought back to her times in school when people were making fun of her, knowing that they couldn’t keep her do...

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“WHO ARE THE WALKING DEAD” by Ronald Gagnon

Submitted to Contest #78

Hello.....My name is Ricardo I am looking for the convention room in this hotel for fans/discussions about The Walking Dead... And all the theories about how that scenario is playing out in the "Real" world... Can You Help me....I notice you are wearing the Rick Grimes outfit...so I figure you must know where you are going... Am I right? Yeah... yeah... I am Donald....Don to my friends.....Trumpass.. and I hope you will be one of them.... It is so hard to discuss this situation with "normal" people who have no idea what is goin...

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“For Her Eyes Only ” by Louise Muller

Submitted to Contest #78

He raised the tainted paper to eye level and looked at it closely, misshaped and deformed, manipulated by his hands. He ran his hands over the sheet. His hands, like the paper, were misshaped and deformed, manipulated by old age. This would be his last letter, he knew it. His time had come. He met Lina more than sixty years ago at his cousin, Bob's BBQ. If he had known that his entire life would change over burgers and beer, he would have shown much more excitement when Bob invited him. He tried several excuses, but his stubborn cousin wo...

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“Amanda’s Unusual Pet” by Miss Tzofiah

Submitted to Contest #78

In her town, she’s known to everyone for having such great fondness of any kind of animals — may they be venomous and dangerous. They’ve known her — a fearless lass, often to places they knew not whence she came with scary carnivorous animals with her. There’s one of the times she came with two large scorpions on her shoulders, which that day, made all the inhabitants rush inside their houses and close all their doors as she passed by. She has no parents anymore with her. She grew up in the jungle where all sorts of beautiful animals ex...

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“My Friend, Cluckster” by Kelly Pawlik

Submitted to Contest #78

Benny dropped his backpack to the ground and glanced around before opening the latch on the small coop in his backyard. He’d made the whole thing himself out of scrap wood and some chicken wire. He pulled the apple slices he’d saved from his breakfast out of his pant pocket and dropped them into the cage. “Here you go Cluckster,” he said. The bird’s red comb bobbed as he pecked greedily at the morsels of food, but didn’t look at Benny. Benny studied the creature. He’d hoped his feathers would have filled in a bit more by now, but his scal...

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“What kind of Pet?” by John Del Rio

Submitted to Contest #78

Gerald looked confused; it was a look that often crossed his coarse features. Teague told him; “I said that they took Pecht from her, not that they took her pet”. The third man who was larger still than both of the other two large men looked at the interaction with a slight smile on his plain, serious face. Gerald spoke once again; “well what kind of pet did the cook lady keep? Was it a dog, a cat, a rabbit?” Teague slowly shook his head as the bruiser continued with his not quite tirade; maybe it was a speech, it was at least said wi...

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$50

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Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 29, 2021 EST

Won by Christina Marie 🏆

Title: Life's Leftovers

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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