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Write about someone who still practices a skill that used to be necessary but has long since been replaced by technology.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

“NOT the ´Funny One´” by Carole Cobos

Submitted to Contest #78

“Jack of all trades, master of none. Better than being master of one” she mumbles, pale brown hair knotted in her hand. Well, that’s just, excuse her french, bull shark!Cameron, Cammie to her friends, has always been completely average. In looks, intelligence, attitude, and talent. It was sickening.It was incredibly sickening because all of her friends were sickeningly talented.Ariana was an amazing gymnast.Alexie was an incredible athlete.Pamela was a beautiful singer.Alex was effortlessly beautiful.Jamie was stupidly smart. ...

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“Not enough interest” by Sambulo Kunene

Submitted to Contest #78

I jokingly told my sister that I had lost my job. I had no prospects. The recession was not going anywhere fast. I was broke. My unemployment benefits had lapsed. I had nothing in the reserve. All my savings were wiped out to pay off a salary that was no longer direct deposited into my account. My employer closed plants and moved overseas!I sat on my dining chair one morning and jotted down what I considered to be my best traits. If life were to come to a standstill and no more jobs or salaries were ever going to return to our lies what woul...

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“The man with no passion” by Eliza Moon

Submitted to Contest #78

Once upon a time, on the planet UIO, in a beautiful Blue system lighted up the Blue Sun, far away from the planet Earth a man with no commitment was born. His name was Jussepppe. Since a very young age his parents have been trying to pick up a hobby and, to tell the truth, Jusseppe wasn't against it, but he had a problem he never could keep up with a hobby for more than 3 days. All his life he tried and tried to find that one special hobby for him, but no hobby was enough for him. Once while reading a Galactical Newspaper Jusseppe found an a...

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“To Move a River” by Sam Ackman

Submitted to Contest #78

How does one person move a river? It’s force continuously pushing, crashing along the easiest path to flow down, wearing down obstacles in its way. Her heart fluttered like a butterfly trying to escape as she eyed up the black, solid door in front of her with an air of determination. With lips pressed tightly together, she walked into the room where she did not belong and she had no interest in being. Opening the door, the burst of babbling conversations rose to her ears and her eyes squinted as bright lights cut in shar...

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“A Hobby can spread over. ” by Kunnath Rahul

Submitted to Contest #78

The story is about a boy, who started to copy an unwanted hobby from other guy and the situations he faced because of that bad hobby.The main character of this story is Rohit, who is a high school student. He is a fair, tall and thin boy. He has a friend called kishore, who is dark, tall and thin boy. Both of them are neighbours and both of them are good friends. Rohit and kishore are good in studies. They usually get good marks in the exams. They had completed their 9th grade.They had good fun during summer holidays. After the holidays, the...

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“My sister refused by invitation to "hobby"” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #78

I cannot convince her, my 8 year old sister to join in my hobby- art I call it. It is early Saturday morning, maybe 10am. I am about 10, 1953. Freckles cover my face and my red curls cover the freckles and my eyes at this early hour. I have been allowed to stay in my nightie, the one trimmed with lace and flowers, the one that flares out from under my still invisible breasts. My feet are bare. I am sitting on a little stool, which my father made, and I am about 6 inches from the TV set. This is what my father wo...

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“Liz's Escapades ” by Maria Yiannakis

Submitted to Contest #78

Liz would not keep quiet about getting her mother to join her in her lessons. Liz had been a lost soul, and her mother knew it. She partly blamed herself of always indulging Liz in whatever she wanted. She had the means to, so why not? Well, that is how she used to think. Now, looking back, Margret could see the error of her ways, and how it could have been much worse. Margaret had not been born into high society like some of her social circle. She had married into it. She had married for convenience rather than for a passionate, cri...

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“Randy's New Hobby” by John H Tate

Submitted to Contest #78

Randy Hinshaw was waiting in Jim King's office when Jim came in. Jim King is a Senior Aerospace Engineer in Huntsville Alabama, his area of responsibility is the initial rocket launch protocols. A very high profile and extremely stressful profession in general; however, even more so for his team, since many departments are basing their work progressions on the protocols set by Jim's team. As Jim walked in, he could see Randy's face dealing with some stress-related is...

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“Fun Apartment ” by A.J. Brown

Submitted to Contest #78

“I’m just going to stay home and read,” Sasha said to him. “You’re welcome to join me.” Alan figured this was the way things went for him. He would have been willing to do just about anything to go on a date with this girl. But sit and read? What was the point? He could sit and read by himself. And he didn’t enjoy it. “I mean, you could always just read in the morning,” he said awkwardly. “Why don’t we go do something fun tonight? Could go out to a bar. There’s a festival downtown we can go to...

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“Art Is...Everything” by Michelle Hicks

Submitted to Contest #78

"Really all you do is take the big brush and swiftly move it back and forth across the canvas. You have to feel it, go with the motion of the ocean.", I said, quickly turning my head to hide my reddened cheeks. It's surprising that he's not very talented at painting, being that he's awesome at everything. His own words. It's probably the reason he attempted to try this out. People don't really want to learn new hobbies, or want unnecessary talents that don't benefit them. Or they just don't have time. But being open to new things is the most...

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“Gardening Hope” by Bernadette Beauchamp

Submitted to Contest #78

Blanca heard a commotion coming from the garden of the Escondido Community Center. Many voices were excitedly whispering as she entered. She was planning on attending to her vegetables in the tiny plot that the center had given her. She loved having this space to work since living in an apartment was so limiting and snug. But the thing she loved the most was having other people to talk to while she gardened. As she got closer to her plot, she saw her friends and realized that the commotion was coming from her space. "How is that even p...

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“My Giraffe Journey ” by Lexi Deighan

Submitted to Contest #78

If someone were to peek in on my room, they would probably see a pretty basic room for the average sixteen-year-old. I have a standard bed with a bright pink comforter, filled with numerous floral pillows. My walls are painted a bland shade of white, but they are decorated with numerous polaroid photos of me and my friends at the pool in the summertime. If an adult were to randomly go in my room, they would probably note that my closet, filled to the brim with numerous types of dresses, looks exactly like the closet of their own daughters or...

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“The Pet” by Rick Bramhall

Submitted to Contest #78

Tony and his new friend Smitty were sitting around in Tony's rec room, getting to know each other. The room, Smitty decided, was lovely. With oak paneling and a full-sized wet bar, it was an impressive “man cave.” The carpeting was deep, the TV set was just a little smaller than the screen you'd find in a movie theater and the pool table looked new. “So,” Smitty surmised, “you play pool?” He was quite the pool shark himself and he was beginning to wonder if it would adversely affect their budding friendship if he soundly whipped Tony in a g...

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“The Raven and the Vampire” by Kelsea Paine

Submitted to Contest #78

Edgar's feathers shone in the moonlight, his curious black eyes looking sideways at the enby vampire that had been his companion for half a decade. He had become accustomed to the moonlight, though his species was not naturally nocturnal, because this was when Evelyn was awake. They—Evelyn was neither a he nor a she—kept a refrigerator stocked with bits of chicken and liver and fruit, and it was all for Edgar because Evelyn didn't eat food of that kind. "Never more" Edgar croaked the first phrase Evelyn had ever taught him. The hint of a...

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“Pet Cuisine” by Madisson James

Submitted to Contest #78

It was different. I have to admit that. But the locals didn't seem to think it strange...at all! Pets are one thing. Cuisine is quite another. It was summer. Hot, humid and sun shiny. That's the best I could do to describe the Bahamas in the summer of 2005. It was hotter than I could remember for the past five years since we had been coming down to the islands. The people were always friendly...and fat. Or was it always fat...and friendly. Well one of the two. The delicacy was chicken, lots of starchy foods and the ev...

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$50

Prize money

735

Contest entries

0

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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