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Write about someone who still practices a skill that used to be necessary but has long since been replaced by technology.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

“A Work in Progress” by A.Dot Ram

Submitted to Contest #78

My guest room closet is where ambition goes to die. Take, for instance, the green plastic tub of fabric. There’s the two yards of flannel meant to be the backing for my homemade face wipes. The internet said it was one of the best things you could do for the environment—ditch those cotton pads you get at the drug store in favor of reusable ones. It only took one link for me to find step-by-step instructions for making my own. A quick YouTube video taught me the recommended blanket stitch (poke the needle in from the back, move a stitch width...

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“Welcome To The Family...” by XANDER DMER

Submitted to Contest #78

Hey There... My name is Abdul Fafsa.I wanted to go to America, because I wanted a better Life. I wanted to get myself and my family away from this terrifying country. A place where there is always a war between our country and another. A place that you always lose someone so special… I was 9 years old, playing in the living room with my best friend Mustapha. Suddenly an ear ringing rupturing explosion occurs.Everything went black, minutes passed as I wiped my eyes and looked to see if my friend was ok. Mustapha was still ...

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“Learn to Laugh” by ꊰꏂꋬꋪ꒒ꏂꇙꇙ ꊰꄲꉧ

Submitted to Contest #78

It is a well-known fact that dragons possess hearts of stone. Cold, cruel, and evil are just a few of the many ways to describe us. We no longer have feelings. No emotions. There is no happy or sad. No joy or anger. We don’t know how to laugh. We have forgotten how to cry. And love is only a distant memory lost to time . . . There’s no going back. The clock cannot be unwound. Dragons are too far gone. Or so I believed . . . But all that changed with a wail. A simple cry that turned my world on its head. I remember flying over the trees,...

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“The Warriors ” by Arooj Fatima

Submitted to Contest #78

It’s been so long since Alay smiled. One big tragedy changed his life forever. Black clouds surrounded him and he lived a miserable life. But one day something miraculous happened that changed his life in seconds.It was a beautiful sunny morning in the village of Gala. All the kids were playing, women were busy in doing household chores and men were getting ready to harvest their crops. All the villagers were united and respected one another. Women mostly made rugs and traded so that they could run their household. On the other hand, all men...

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“in sheep's clothing” by Ru .

Submitted to Contest #78

Your fingers would not be enough to count all the things you would want to try. It’s why you would have created a bookshelf deep inside your mind with ledges made of shallow ambitions and bookends sculpted like wolves blowing kisses to the moon. Sometimes you would sit and close your eyes, running your nails over the intangible books labelled with all your abandoned hobbies, an uneven skyline of neglected ruins. And there they would remain stacked, shivering under cardigans of spider silk and blankets sewed from shadows. There would only be ...

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“Ruby's Secret” by Nancy Drayce

Submitted to Contest #78

I have a secret... After I tell you this story you’ll need to make a decision because I can’t... and I may disappear if you don’t. 26. 07. 2021.As I am writing this all I can think about is whether you’ll understand me or not because you are my only witness, you are the only one that can save me,... or not. I need to hurry, so I’ll start the story I need to tell before they come. Twenty-third of July, I was riding the bike along the coastline. The sun was bathing me with its beams; the warm wind was tangling my hair but I didn’t mi...

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“Betty” by Karen McDermott

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #78

People don’t seem to notice Betty much in the daytime. But when night falls she glistens blackly, slithers up my arm, crawls across my neck, to perch on my shoulder with her whiskers tickling my earlobe. You know how sometimes a laptop pop-up when you’ve watched too much of a series in one sitting asks if you’re still there? When I feel Betty’s saliva pooling on one of my collarbones I know it’s time for us both to go to bed. She watches as I brush my teeth, fascinated. I have no qualms undressing before her now, having long ago given up try...

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“'Dear Jackie '” by Asha Pillay

Submitted to Contest #78

'With lots of love and kisses to my darling Cathy '.Lissy concluded it by drawing two tiny hearts on the card, folded it neatly and placed it in the envelope .If she hurried now her card would go out with the first mail pickup of the day .She took her walking stick and her sling bag and went out of the house .With slow measured steps she walked towards the post office which was just a stone's throw away from her house.Tenny the postmistress greeted her with a warm smile."Good morning Lissy""Good m...

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“Diary of a Busy Julia ” by ✯𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫✯

Submitted to Contest #78

Dear Diary, Date: 01.01.2021 Entry: #1 Day: Friday Time: 5:43 pm Hi! My name is Julia Hope. I am a normal sixteen-year-old girl, who loves to play the guitar. It's my passion, but that's just one of my many passions. For example, last year I tried ballerina class, but then I hated it because I kept stepping on my toe and it bruised a lot of times, which I hated. Also, the shoes really hurt my feet and compress my pinky toe, so how could twirl around when my feet are hurt? Plus, let's not even get into their frilly dresses. The fabr...

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“Margaret's Perfume” by Angela Brown

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #78

As time inched closer to 5 o’clock, the ambient keyboard clicks on the accounting floor scattered and slowed. I fired off a few email replies and slid back my headset, rested it around my neck and rubbed my eyes until I saw spots. I had no real problems with this job during my five months at Goldleaf Bank, only that the place was so colorless and dull that I felt myself turning more and more into a potted plant. And an artificial plant at that, since my cube was flooded with cold hospital lighting with not a window in sight to remind me th...

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“Under the Azure Sky” by Yolanda Wu

Submitted to Contest #78

Evandar had been enjoying her tea when the palace guards rudely interrupted. They walked into the room in their uniform manner, then got down on one knee with their heads bowed. Her maid, Milla, came rushing in behind them.“Your Highness,” Milla and the guards said at the same time.Evandar kept sipping at her tea. “Yes, what is it?” she asked, trying not to let her annoyance show. She didn’t have the energy to deal with this. She had gotten up, put on her best clothing and jewellery, did her make-up all nice with the pure intention of stayin...

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“The Parts of Her That Are Magic” by Amaya .

Submitted to Contest #78

Her EyesCatherine points to a small plant growing through a crack in the concrete. It has a long, thin stem, bending slightly towards the sun. Catherine would call it wispy, or fragile, but in reality, it’s only flimsy, and I doubt it will survive for longer than a week. Her fingers stretch towards it as I pull her away by the other hand. “Delilah,” she says. Her voice flits through the air. “It means delicate.”“You’ve been saving that name, haven’t you?”“Yes,” she says, sounding breathless. I look down at the flower. With it...

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“Average Joe” by Gip Roberts

Submitted to Contest #78

He wiped the dust off an old book, and the vision from twenty-six years ago came back. With instinct, he felt around the back of a neck that was starting to sag. No hair. None. Was the memory a fact of the past or a dream? The aftermath of long months spent getting the hair just right had left Joe with nothing but dead, faded remnants. Once a thick ebony, now thin and frayed. Once, it hung over his shoulders like a royal curtain. Now, it colored his sunburned scalp in pale patches.Joe thumbed through pages of tablature. They were a sick yell...

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“Ink” by Maya W.

Submitted to Contest #78

“Memory is more indelible than ink.” Her name is forgotten by time, and she writes letters. She is the ink to the quill, the paper to the typewriter. She is the words one speaks, and the silence between them. She is outdated, but she is new and fresh to those who have not come by her before. She writes letters in ink, for in her opinion that is the only true way to write. She writes from dusk to dawn, penning new phrases and words no one has heard. She writes voices for those in her mind who are voiceless, and she writes so...

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“An Imperfect Circle” by David G.

Submitted to Contest #78

“Don’t hesitate."The voice comes from across the green cloth-draped folding table where I am seated at the Twenty-Third Annual Freehand Circle Drawing World Championship with my head down and my shoulders hunched forward in a pointed I'm-very-busy posture.I wince. Now is not the time. I need to practice, get my head in the right space, concentrate on the task at hand. This is something I've been working towards. It matters.Even without this latest distraction, conditions are sub-optimal. It’s too cold in the room. The AC chortles and hums an...

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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.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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