Valkyrie

How has everyone been enjoying the anthology stories so far? We've had 12 stories featured over the past two weeks, and here are another six. And... drum roll... stay tuned for next week's blog because we're not done yet! Keep those comments and reviews coming. I know how much authors appreciate feedback, so please continue to show support to the authors who took time to participate in this year's anthology. Now on to the featured creatures!

Get reading because there's more stories coming tomorrow

Who's ready for more anthology stories? I have six more creatures to be released Keep those reviews, reactions, and comments coming!

Thank you!

Everyone is currently at their jobs, so it will likely get fixed sometime this afternoon/evening EST.

Apparently internet-dwelling creatures have absconded with the anthology stories... The links are live on my end, so there must be some sort of bug or glitch that needs squashing by our Grand Wizard @Myr

It's here! It's here! We've been waiting all year, and it's finally time to release the beasts! Uh... creatures... uh... anthology stories We had a fantastic turnout for this anthology, so get ready to read, comment, react, and review! I'll be splitting up the submissions over the next few weeks, so if you don't see your story featured here today, don't worry, you're on the list for a different week this month.

Our high here is 85F today. Should be in the 60s.

Same here. It's also been ridiculously warm this fall, which means a warm lake. Not good when temps start to fall, as that means lake effect snow.

No rain here. It's been so dry, we're actually in a drought We've been having summer temps this fall, and I can't wait till Wednesday when our temps finally become seasonal. And Tuesday we finally have some rain in the forecast.

It's super easy to get sucked into negativity, whether it's the news, social media, family, work, the weather... I'm guilty of falling into this trap, but over the past few years I've been trying to learn how to find positives to counterbalance the negative. Some days are definitely harder than others, that's for sure. A dear friend of mine has been my inspiration in this journey. They always know what to say to make me feel better, and their positive outlook on life is contagious. We need more of this in the world. Believe me, I know that things aren't sunshine and unicorns all the time, and I'm not saying they have to be. I need a good ugly cry while stuffing my face with an entire bag of cheezy puffs every once in a while and feel no shame in doing so. And I totally admit to flipping off more people than I probably should when driving. But then I tell myself, maybe that a-hole who just cut me off after tailgating me is on their way to an emergency, or simply having an ugly-cry-cheeze-puff-eating day, and then sit on my hands instead of giving them the bird. Anyway, enough rambling. On to the prompts! PT Prompt #310 Create a negative situation for your character, then put a positive spin on it. PT Prompt #311 Write about how you handle negative situations like the traffic scenario above. Please include the prompt number either in your story/chapter description or title to help readers who would like to search for specific prompts. Also, please remember that stories less than one thousand words must be posted as part of a collection. If you check the subgenre ‘prompt’ in your story tags, then people/readers can find everything here: https://gayauthors.org/stories/browse/subgenre/prompt/

Foreboding - the sense that @wildone will have before reading my anthology story

We'll definitely be keeping our standbys. It's up to the authors and readers to make them bigger and better, which they do every year

And the admins running them But yes, it's definitely a juggling act.

Now that the anthology deadline has passed, it's time to look to what's next on the GA Writing Event agenda while we wait for the anthology stories to go live. You guys were total rock stars this year, with 23 Secret Author stories, 17 tribute stories, and 8 poetry collections. I challenged authors to at least meet, and hopefully surpass, the number of SA stories for the anthology. Was that goal met? You'll have to wait till next Thursday to find out Our next writing event will be the annual Prompt Team Event, which will be announced after the conclusion of the anthology. We're also working on finalizing what writing events will be offered next year, so stay tuned for that announcement as well. We'll also be announcing a new writing event, in addition to our regular features. With that in mind, tell us your favorite event this year. To recap, we had Auld Lang Syne in honor of Carlos Hazday, Diversity - poetry anthology, our tribute to Comicality, and the Secret Author contest. What events do you want to see next year?

Yeeeessssss the community here is amazing! I love how everyone supports each other and steps up when needed.

I started a story for last year's SA contest and still haven't finished it I even missed the anthology, which is the first one I've missed since 2014 Do what you can, when you can

I usually end up writing my own story over a short period of time at the last minute. There's definitely time if anyone has any last-minute ideas.

LINED sticky notes??? How have I not known that such a thing exists? This is far more exciting than my weekend. I'm doing laundry this afternoon, picked up my groceries this morning, took a nap (i.e. fell asleep watching YouTube videos), and am catching up on anthology proofreads and scheduling.

When I see the first word of a story is "you", I normally immediately stop reading and look for something else, just because there's so much bad second person writing out there. It's funny that I happened to be reading a new book of short stories today and one of them featured an introduction written in second person. It was so well done that the POV seemed perfectly natural for the story. Maybe one of these days I'll take up the challenge of writing in second person.

Well with that description, it totally HAS to be included in the anthology, so I'll give you an extension if you need it

Who's frantically writing and working to get their story done in time for the deadline? While I don't have the official number of stories submitted yet, I can say we are very close to matching the number of Secret Author stories. This is going to be a great anthology, so stay tuned! The Proof Team is hard at work proofreading the stories that have been submitted so far. Please be patient as more stories are coming in every day, and we are volunteers with a life outside of GA (I know.. who'd a thunk it?) We will get through everyone's stories in plenty of time Who's excited to start reading about our featured creatures?

No Story Limit: Each story submitted must meet quality and editing guidelines. Each story posted as its own submission Minimum word count per story: 1,000 Maximum word count per story: 25,000 There's no word limit for single chapters, so you could put all 25k words into a single chapter.

Today's prompt blog is going to be a little bit different. Five years ago, @wildone featured some guest prompts after our prompt guru Comicfan sadly passed away. One of these prompts was recently resurrected, with several authors taking up the challenge. This is one of my favorite technical prompts, as it gets authors to consider their words carefully and approach first person POV in a different way. So please check out the prompt and responses and give it a go yourself. Be sure to post your links in the comments here and in the prompt thread. Now start writing! Technical Prompt Challenge: Write a story (at least 500 words) in first person without using the pronoun "I". Please include the prompt number either in your story/chapter description or title to help readers who would like to search for specific prompts. Also, please remember that stories less than one thousand words must be posted as part of a collection. If you check the subgenre ‘prompt’ in your story tags, then people/readers can find everything here: https://gayauthors.org/stories/browse/subgenre/prompt/