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Do you know those situations where you ask yourself, “What would happen if...?” Or, “Should I do it?” This Friday’s prompts are about doing something crazy, spontaneous, and daring. PT #167 Write about a person who sees a phone number scratched in the wood of a bench in the park. Spontaneously they dial it. What does your character feel when the phone rings? PT #168 First line: Boom! Did I do this? 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/

I just hit a 1000 day learning streak on the language app I'm using to learn German (it will be 1006 today), and came across a couple of sentences I thought were perfect for first line prompts. PT Prompt #133 - First line "What are you cooking, and why does it stink?" PT Prompt #134 - First line "Why is your underwear in the swimming pool?" 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/

Here is a place to discuss poems and ideas for NaPoWriMo 2023.

Upon request of a certain hungry someone I offer: PT# 125 A couple has dinner at a fancy restaurant and is about to enjoy their famous lava cake on ice. They slowly slide their spoons into the molten chocolate and find—something that doesn’t belong. What is it? How do they react? Will they get their money back? PT #126 Create a dessert that will satisfy even the hungriest GA member using the following words: sparklers, cream, chocolate-covered ants, strawberries, blue cheese, walnuts, pudding, black bowl, and a secret ingredient.

I browsed the various genres and tags the other day and thought how about we go on a writing adventure, step out of our comfort zone, and try new things? PT #119 Your protagonist orders their favorite hot beverage at the coffee shop, stirs it with a strangely formed spoon, and suddenly the place is devoid of any customers. The door opens, and in comes a person wearing black clothes and a Venetian mask. Write the first lines of their conversation, or more? PT #120 Write a letter either as a fictional person or yourself and tell a friend about a life-changing encounter.

I always wondered if famous authors stare at a white sheet of paper or a blinking cursor, wrestling with the very first word, the first sentence, like me. There is a story somewhere, but how to begin? Or do the words just pour out of them? PT#77 Let’s borrow an opening line of a famous book and write a short piece of fiction or a poem. I’m pretty much f*cked. (The Martian by Andy Weir) All children, except one, grow up. (Peter Pan by J.M: Barrie) He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. (Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini) PT#78 Play with perspectives. Write the same story from the perspective of at least two persons.

I know it really means don’t argue with me, or just do it (please), or even indulge me. What I’m asking for is to make me and everyone else laugh in my very special, weird way. PT #65 Explain why the MC of your prompt story is standing in front of their house in their underwear, with one sock on the left foot and a cooking spoon in their hand. PT #66 After a long flight, someone grabs their suitcase, marked with a bright yellow band to avoid any mix-up, from the luggage belt. At the hotel, they open it and find out it’s definitely not their suitcase. What do they find? And remember, make us laugh, no stinky socks, boring books, or lame leatherette boots.

I don't think anyone took the prompt last week, so without further ado this weeks prompt. Prompt du jour #4 – Creative Tag: Mystery There’s a killer on the loose, and everyone in your community is scared. This is startling to you because you sense that the serial murderer is targeting a select class of citizen. Who is he/she and why are they targeting them?

Last week I proposed a prompt for Remembrance day, and I will say that I wasn't disappointed. Ron took the prompt and made it his own and made it into something fantastic. Look below to see a glimpse of his response. Now without further ado, this week’s prompt. Prompt du jour #3 – Creative Tag: first line “I know you love me no matter what, but …” Want to read more? Check out Ron's response Sandbox.

Much of the Eastern United States is being hammered by a massive snowstorm as I write this. We're getting close to two feet of snow where I live. So it feels fitting to feature two prompts based on snow. What's it like where you live? PT Prompt #15 - Technical Describe a cold, snowy winter to a pen pal who has never seen one. PT Prompt #16 - Creative The Gay Snowman. How does a snowman find love?

We always tell you what to do. Write a story, a poem using this or that. I thought we could do it the other way around this Friday. You tell us what to write. For example, @Valkyrie Write a story beginning with a Valkyrie, an Erinys, and an Oracle meet at a spa, or @Cole Matthews Please write another sonnet. (He will probably kill me for this.) So, good-bye if you don’t hear from me anymore. If there is more than one prompt, we get to choose and the rest go into the guest prompt bank. PT #53 Prompt us. PT #54 It’s Pride month. Write a poem a story, whatever you want, and tell us what Pride means to you or to a fictitious character.

Do you want to write a story, maybe for the upcoming anthology, but nothing inspires an idea? How about this? PT# 47 For weeks, someone has this uneasy feeling they forgot something important: a birthday, an anniversary, an invitation. Then a long-forgotten childhood friend calls them. “I just wanted to remind you about—” About what? I’m curious to read your story. Or, you send someone on a scavenger hunt. PT# 48 The protagonist steps out their door and finds several blue shimmering items that no one else seems to see. They follow the trail. In the end, they are able to assemble a wondrous machine. What can it do? I don’t believe in bad luck on Friday the 13th! Don't forget the Sub-Genre Rewrite the Prompt Contest - Entries due by May 22, 2022

Sometimes the story is outlined on paper or in our head, but how to begin? The first sentence should engage the reader without revealing too much or boring them to death. This time we’ll do it the other way around. PT #41a Pick an introductory sentence from a favorite book on your shelf at home or a story on GA and use it to start a short story or vignette. And because it’s still April: PT#41b Choose the first line of any poem and continue to write a poem of your own. PT #42 Did you see the Sub Genre rewrite challenge? Your goal is to rewrite a given prompt to show it instead of telling it. You can focus on the scene itself or rewrite it into a new story. Add more that comes before or after but be sure to include these paragraphs in all the glorious five senses details to bring the story alive for readers. More than one author can pick the same prompt, as we all visualize scenes differently. Have fun!

April is National Poetry writing month (NaPoWriMo). The challenge is to write a poem a day until May. Over the last years, we had several poets who took up the gauntlet. I understand that many of you can't or don't want to write a poem a day, but we are looking forward to every poem or poetry collection that will be posted during the next month. We are happy we could win AC Benus as a special guest to get us started with two brand new poetry prompts: Skyscraper Let's Write some Skyscrapers! Never heard of it before? PT#33a) Stand-alone Skyscraper – by this point, we are all tired of winter in the northern hemisphere, so write a Skyscraper thinking ahead to how eating your first slice of season-ripened watermelon will make you feel. Capture the moment and the undercurrents of emotions. Alternately, choose an animal of your choice to write about, be it bird, frog, ladybug, firefly, or anything that makes you reflect upon nature and the current season. PT#33b) Stanza-pattern Skyscraper – write a poem of at least three stanza-form Skyscrapers strophes. Base your poem on the feelings raised in you by listening to the following Karl Ditters composition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nRUxdA59yQ&t=339s https://youtu.be/0nRUxdA59yQ Alternately, go to the following image hosting service and write a poem based on any of the pictures that engage your creativity. Be sure to include a link to your inspiration picture with your completed poem. https://unsplash.com/s/photos/mist Whichever theme you choose, be sure to have your Skyscraper(s) consist of 7 lines of the correct syllable count. Also, carry your thought out through all of the lines, avoiding any hard-stops or one-and-done lines of poetry. The Skyscraper is verse, and all about how you turn the line beautifully from one to the next. Remember that. Ballad Let's Write an 8-10 Ballad! Never heard of it before? PT#34 Write one 8-10 Ballad (or as many as needed) to explore your feelings concerning the war Russia is waging against Ukraine. Perhaps start with remembering where you were the moment you heard Putin had actually invaded. This is an excellent form to tell the war’s “story” to this point in time, while also relaying how the fighting/defending makes you feel (i.e. the Narrative and Lyric elements united together). Alternately, choose a memory of a kid’s birthday party and write about it. Perhaps write about one you celebrated as a child in the context of one you have thrown or attended as an adult. Whichever theme you choose, be sure to make each 8-10 Ballad contain 4 quatrains for a total of 16 lines (and use as many 8-10 Ballads as you need, which you will label i., ii., iii., etc. – and title individually if you like). Be sure to only rhyme on lines 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, 12, 14, 16, for a total of 4 pairs; do not use any pair of rhymes more than once in the 16 lines of any particular 8-10 Ballad. Avoid repetition to keep the poems sounding fresh.

A Round Robin isn’t a fat bird. It’s actually a lot of things, but the only interesting definition concerning prompts is that it is a form of storytelling. There are several variations. Let’s try two. PT# 27 Tell a story that begins at the same place as it ends. PT# 28 Find at least one fellow author and tell a story together. Write its paragraphs or sentences alternatively.

So, why the heck did I give you these random prompts? I helped my nephew to draw all kinds of alien species, that’s why. And because there has always to be a second prompt, I used the next sentence someone said to me as a first line. Val thought I have to explain my randomness. Prompt #89 The newest spaceship is ready to leave the space yard when the main engineer gets a last-minute order: He has to modify the captain’s chair. Due to the new captain’s species, he wouldn’t be able to use the old one comfortably. Explain. Prompt #90 First line: “That’s not my package!”

My latest short story That's Where You'll Find Me plays with the concepts of identity, reality, and memory. As many readers know, I am a fan of science fiction and these themes were made famous by authors like Philip K. Dick among others. Yet, I wanted to bring my love of science fiction into contemporary gay fiction. For me, I wanted to create a short story based on the concept of framed false memory from the perspective of an LGBTQ victim, who was traumatized and brutalized into forgetting themselves. Life can get really hard for folks in our community, but some of the worst issues are faceareby those who don't conform to the binary gender identity. It's not difficult to imagine someone who goes through a psychological break and becomes a different person with memories re-oriented, so the new reality fits their new life. A famous psychological issue called the Mandela Effect harnessed this severe psychological break with reality to rewrite history to suit personal needs. The Mandela effect, in short, was a phenomenon encountered by people, who claimed they had heard, seen, or witnessed the death of Nelson Mandela in the 1980s, when in fact he would not die until 2013 after serving as President of South Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_Effect It's a fascinating concept about how cognitive reasoning and personal views shape "perceived reality" versus "factual reality". My protagonist in this short story is a conservative Christian college student, who has spent most of his life, as far as he knows, being a devout Christian who crusaded against everything from abortion to LGBT rights to promoting Conversion therapy. Yet, his entire reality and structure of truth are put to the test, when he hears a girl play and sing the famous song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which seemed familiar to him and incites a deep-seated need for protection from him. As the story progresses, I show readers why this need to protect exists and break the multiple layers of false memories that created his reality. In the end, I wanted my character to reclaim their identity and reality, despite the trauma of accepting what had happened or what they have done in their life afterward. Not everyone is a strong survivor after a trauma, many people will look within themselves and change themselves to be something else to adapt. This happens to a lesser degree when people enter new surroundings like college or workplaces, but in my story, the protagonist had to re-orient their entire life history to make sense of their life experience. There's also a culpability factor in my story, for this illusion to continue, the closest people around the protagonist like his parents and best friend must accept his new reality as well. They did it out of guilt and obligation, but it actually compounds psychological issues from the protagonist's sense of reality and his self-identity. Reality is a tricky concept, there's factual reality, implied reality, and self-actualized reality. Some sidenotes: 1. The title is based on a line from Somewhere Over the Rainbow, along with the last names of two main characters being based on the names of the actual writers. 2. The fictional fraternity my protagonist belonged to has a famous Christian Greek prefix, "Chi" and "Rho" Greek letters combined in Christian iconography represent the cross in early Christianity. I know not many readers will know this little textual detail, nor care, but I did it intentionally. Most people know I have a grasp of Christian history and languages.

Magic is in the air! PT#95 Sam got a magical advent calendar from gran Lulu. So far, the chocolate and marzipan were delicious but magical? What does the calendar’s magic do to Sam? PT#96 Looking for the box with Christmas decorations in the attic, your protagonist pushes cardboard boxes around. Suddenly something strange drops on the floor. After a closer examination, it turns out to be a mechanical arm. After playing around with it for a while it suddenly attaches itself to them, replacing the biological body part. Ooops.

PT#101 You moved a bookcase to make room for the New Year's Eve party and an old atlas falls down. Inside you find a yellowed New Year's resolutions list. Try to answer the wh-questions who, when, and what and create a story. PT#102 You get an email from yourself on New Year’s Eve warning you about a mistake you’ve made in the past year. What did you write to yourself? Happy New Year! Your Prompt Team

Writing is an art that sometimes is inspired by other forms of art, including music, architecture, painting, or sculpture. Pt: 107: Someone drew a stairway with chalk on a street. Your MC sets foot on it and pretends to walk downward; suddenly he enters a basement. Describe what he finds. Pt 108: What happened?

This challenge was so popular two weeks ago and we have another open blog today, so I thought we'd have some more Halloween fun. It's almost here! It's a super simple challenge that helps get your creative juices flowing... write a caption for this image below that tells a story and share it in the blog comments. You have just 30 words or less to share what you think is happening in the picture. Narrate the scene, give a spooky reason why those jack-o-lantern's are clustered there, or give us a peek at the events about to happen... Are they about to get revenge for the carving? Eeek! You tell us! CAPTION THIS Remember, authors, you can get featured in the site blogs with several author features but you have to sign up for them! Story Critique: Open to all GA authors. Sign up here Story Recommendations: Open to all GA authors & readers. PM your recommendation and why you recommend it to a Site Admin.

Today, we're doing something a little different! This is the newest newsletter prompt writing game. So, play along with some other authors, have fun with any headline that catches your eye, and get a link to your story featured in the site newsletter! HEADLINE PROMPT GAME Happy Gay Pride Month, everyone! How are you celebrating? Does your city do a parade? Special event weekends? Ban celebrations? *boo hiss* Or are you not quite ready for the crowds? Well, how about GA celebrates together with a new game? Very loose rules with this game, just have some fun with it. You're going to google "Gay Pride" and then click on the (News) option. Then DON'T click on the results! All you're going to do is use one of the headlines that catches your eye to create a scenario and write from there. Any length, any genre is fine, but the theme is sort of obvious, lol. You can share your headline in the game topic, talk about your story/writing as you go along, but don't do a full reveal to anyone but your editing team so we can all enjoy them later! Fine print: Deadline is June 28th. Post story/chapter unpublished with no date. Send link to Cia via PM. Story release will happen with July 1st newsletter.

The Janus Society's president had a magazine called, "Drum" and in 1965, it was the first U.S. magazine to show a nude male from the front. What is his story? Where did he come from and how was he chosen?

Or, this coin depicting Janus was found on an archeological dig in southern France. Tell us a story about how it was found.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: See my opening remarks on the purpose and intent of this prompt series here. As always, feel free to alter the characters' genders or ages if you like. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O. Henry Short Story Prompt 3 – Hour of the Dogman Urban life. A melancholy picture of a certain time of the evening comes into focus. Life in the big city means apartment living for most, and that goes for pampered pooches as well. More often than not, it’s the one not-so-in-love with Fido who has to take him out as soon as he gets home, before any mention of dinner is made. Sam Telfair is one such person. While his spouse's obese, precious little terror inspects every tree base, and snarls at every other dog – and Sam alike – his mind wanders over the scene. First he notes with sadness how he is hardly alone. Several young men walk dogs they obviously have no connection with. Primped dogs with bows, ribbons, and frilly pink leads. Next he wonders how his life got to this point. He never wanted to live in the city in the first place, but his partner snagged him in the Western town where they resided, and ambition to 'make something of your life' was forced down his throat; that and having to move to the city because that's 'where everything happens.' Sam is not so sure. He muses that perhaps he left a good thing behind – Sam has a romantic past too with someone, and regrets. While he's walking, he gets the surprise of his life. As if by some trick of fate, 'he' of all people is there. Jim Berry slaps the Dogman on the back and says, "There you are!" It turns out Jim is in town for the day and was on his way over to Sam's place for a visit. Sam says it's better if they go to a bar. So they sit outside and drink freely. They catch up, talk about their current lives, and of their past too. It's getting late. Jim has a train to catch; Sam regards the canine ball-and-chain he's tethered to – the dog's anxious to get home and be fed – and realizes he has a decision to make. The prompt: write your own version of this story. You decide what Sam does at the end, and why.