Hello everyone!
Thanks to our gloriously decisive Patreon voters, we have the rare opportunity to investigate a temporal anomaly!… or at least what feels like one. So prepare your flux capacitors, mobile hooks, and something to sop up the tears, because…
This week’s prompt is:
Last Moment is the Longest
RULES AND GUIDELINES BELOW!
Make sure you scroll down and read them if you haven’t! You may not be eligible if you don’t!
I apologize, that opener was cheeky.
This prompt doesn’t actually smack too much of overt time travel or irregular temporal phenomena, does it? At first glance, it just sounds like something we all experience now and then:
Time, as we perceive it, seems on occasion to slow.
Variety of reasons for it. Maybe you’re waiting for something and your brain wishes you to suffer. Maybe you’ve just fallen in love and your heart has ordered the clock’s hands to halt so it can better catalog things. Maybe something dramatic is about to occur and your squishy human thinking apparatus lags for a moment as it process the imminent outcome.
But maybe, on rare occasion, it’s more than a matter of perception.
Perhaps the actual fabric pf reality has been damned up at some points. Who knows all the rules behind this whole cosmic production we’re a part of? Maybe it’s possible. There could be souls in afterlives, living out an eternal instant of bliss or agony just before the promised “end”. There could be rifts in time where linearity ceases and causation holds no power. On the more probable side of things, could be there’s some poor AI out there, trapped in an experiential gyre after running across a paradox in its code and never being released from it.
All of that is terribly fun, and I encourage you to explore that space.
But, don’t let the spirit of this prompt out of your sights if you can avoid it. This one should be, in some capacity, anticipatory. In all cases, good or bad, there is a moment to come after.
And the space this prompt occupies is just before it.
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Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.
Tune into the stream this Saturday at 7:00pm CST to see if you made the cut!
The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!
Rules and Guidelines
We read six stories during each stream, three of which come from the public post, and three of which come from the much smaller private post. Submissions are randomly selected from among the top ten most-liked of each post, so be sure to share your submissions on social media and with your friends!
- English only.
- Prose only, no poetry or lyrics.
- One submission per participant.
- Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
- Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
- Submissions close at 4:00pm CST each Friday.
- No more than 350 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
- Include a submission title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name).
- Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
- Write something brand new (no re-submitting past entries or stories written for other purposes).
- Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
- Please format your submission as “Submission Title” by Author Name and be sure to separate paragraphs. (Example Submission)
- No fan fiction without explicit permission from the source’s owner, and no spoilers for the source material if you are writing a fan fic.
- Original art may be included in your submission, but is not guaranteed to be shown on stream. Only .jpeg format images shared via a direct link will be accepted. (Example Submission) (Information on “Direct Links”)
- No additional formatting (such as italics or bold text) will be applied to the text of submissions. Symbols or instruction indicating such formatting may render your submission ineligible.
- You must like and leave a review on two other submissions to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long. If you’re submitting to the private post, feel free to leave these reviews on either the private or the public post. The two submissions you like need not be the same as the submissions you review.
- Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission aloud live on stream and upload public, archived recordings of said stream to our social media platforms. You will always be credited, but only by the author name you supply as per these rules. No other links or attributions are guaranteed.
Comments on this post that aren’t submissions will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing submissions.
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