Category: Writing

The 2025 Writing Challenge

On By MaryIn 2025, WritingLeave a comment

Once again, my friend and I are doing a writing challenge! The terms are a little different, and we’re going a little easier on ourselves, but the general end goal is to have written 100,000 words this year.

This year’s writing challenge will be handled as follows:

  1. Every week, we are to write 500 words a day for at least 4 days a week. Those daily updates will need to be made to show that we are pacing ourselves appropriately and doing our due diligence.
  2. Content is whatever we choose it to be, so long as we write 500 words. That can be essays, extended poems, short stories, or piecemeal work on a novel.
  3. A week will be Sunday to Saturday. We will start January 5th and continue until December 20th.
  4. One or more compilation posts will be created and edited together to be posted on the last day of the month. The compilation posts will be the ones linked to each other and in an eventual page dedicated to the writing challenge, to make following along easier.

Because we are bums that are both still working on edits for the 2023 writing challenge, we decided to make the challenge a bit lighter this year. Also, if we don’t finish a story, we won’t push ourselves to continue posting to finish through 2026, so the end of any longer form stories may not be available.

Happy New Year! 🙂

Last Words

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The prompt cards for this were “grandparent” and “phone call at 3 a.m.”

It was fairly easy to see that it had to be the most generic of generic ass ghost stories. So, here you go.

          Dana woke as the phone ring, her hand grasping for the device blindly in the dark. As she raised the lit screen to her face, she grimaced and cursed. Who calls at 3 a.m.? The number was listed as unknown. She answered it, angrily growling, “What?”

          The line was silent, then cut out. Groaning, she slapped the phone back down onto the bed next to her. She lay awake, anger coursing through her, unable to sleep. She was still awake when her alarm clock went off.

          The news was surprising and not surprising at the same time. Her grandmother had been in hospice for a long time, her health fading fast. She was unable to talk coherently or take care of herself, and hadn’t been able to for the longest time. The nurses had warned her mother that she was no longer eating. She had died sometime in the middle of the night.

          Dana cried some in the bathroom at work, but mostly managed to hold it together. Her entire family had known this moment was coming. Every phone call from the nursing home was always met with some level of dread for the news it might carry. But even knowing what was going to happen hadn’t quite cleared the sudden shock of sadness that Dana felt when she finally got the message from her mom. It didn’t help that she’d had so little sleep.

          The shrill sound of her ringtone woke her again. Dana sat up, frowning at the screen. Unknown caller. 3 a.m. again. She groaned and grabbed the phone, ignoring the call. Tomorrow I’m going to turn the ringer off, she told herself.

          Even with the ringer off, the screen lighting up and the vibration of her phone still brought her to consciousness briefly. Not enough to annoy her as badly as it had the previous nights, at least. As she drifted back to sleep, she saw that it was 3 a.m. again.

          The wake was simple – her grandmother had outlived many of her friends, so it was mostly a small family reunion. As sad as the circumstances were, Dana did enjoy the chance to meet with her cousins, whom she hadn’t seen in a few years. Her favorite cousin, Rachel, was a little subdued and looked pale. “What’s the matter?” Dana asked her when she had a chance to speak to her alone.

          “I got a strange phone call. The night grandma died.” Rachel sighed. “Some woman’s voice just said “I love you” and hung up. I didn’t even think about it, but I was just talking to your mom and she said grandma died at the same time as the phone call. I remembered because it was such a weird time of night to call.”

          Dana felt a shiver run up her spine. “What time?”

          “3 a.m.”

          Dana felt the blood drain from her face and her mouth gaped open as she struggled for a moment over whether to tell Rachel about the phone calls she had received or not. After a moment, she decided to keep it to herself.

          That night, Dana didn’t sleep. She sat up, anxiously glancing at her phone as the time ticked closer to 3. When the phone rang, she grabbed it, immediately answering. “Grandma?” she asked.

          The line was silent for a moment. The slightly tinny, staticky voice of a woman came through. Faintly, it said, “I love you.”

          “I love you too,” Dana said immediately, but the line was already dead.

          The phone calls stopped after that.

Prophetic

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The cards for this week are “reckless enthusiasm” and “homeless person.”

The homeless person that does show up isn’t the actual prompt one, because in my mind the main character is totally homeless after this (and is recklessly enthusiastic about his chances, though I guess I could have emphasized that more somehow). I had the idea almost immediately upon drawing the cards, but actually writing it was a bit boring. I like for things to get really dark and disturbing and this doesn’t quite scratch that, I guess.

Nonetheless…

          Gary woke from the dream with a feeling of absolute certainty. He was going to win the lottery one week from today. The dream was a prophecy, the word of God. He knew it for fact. He also knew that he had much to do in that week’s time. A sort of pre-imposed penance to prove his worthiness.

          He started by announcing to his family and friend’s that he was planning to move soon. He offered them first pick of his belongings. “Can I have your Playstation?” Carl from work joked.

          Gary nodded solemnly. “Anything, first come, first serve.” Carl had given him a strange look and declared bullshit. Gary brought the Playstation and all of its controllers and wires the next day. Carl accepted it, but shook his head in disbelief.

          His ex-wife studied him with concern as he dropped off photo albums and old memorabilia that he thought she would like. “You’re not going to off yourself, are you?” she asked when he enthusiastically offered anything she wanted. He shook his head and reassured her that wasn’t the case.

          Gary spent the weekend clearing out the rest of his belongings, every closet, every drawer, all the drawers themselves. He took everything he could to charity and second-hand shops, and the rest to the dump. He turned the keys to his apartment in. He made sizable cash transfers to his church from his bank accounts, leaving only the minimum amount.

          The day had come. He sat outside the gas station, staring placidly at the homeless man loitering outside. On his way in, he handed the man the title to his car and the keys. “It’s yours,” he told the weeping man, who thanked him profusely. And then he went in and bought his ticket.

          Gary sat in the park overnight. It was a warm night, and he felt calm and content knowing that the next day he would be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

          He found a paper to look up the lottery numbers the next morning, a wide smile on his face as he held his ticket up to compare.

          Not a single God damned match.

The Odds

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The cards for this week were “lottery winner” and “lightning.” The result is super fucking obvious, and I didn’t pull together the ending well, because it was so obvious where it was going that I kind of lost the will to put in the effort at the end. Because it’s obvious. Obviously.

          Toby couldn’t believe it. He stared in amazement at the numbers, checking and double checking them. Then he checked and double checked the date for the drawing. The date was right, and all six numbers matched. He trembled slightly, trying to remember what the grand prize for the lottery was these days… he bought the tickets so regularly that he hardly even tracked what the jackpot was. Last he had heard, it was hundreds of millions… and that was after all the estimated taxes.

          It seemed too good to be true. For a moment, he felt like it had to be a strange joke the universe was playing on him. He crumpled the ticket and pushed it deep into the pocket of his jeans. He needed to clear his head somehow, really think about what this could mean for him and his life.

          Toby wasn’t sure where he was going at first, and didn’t really care. He walked down the street at a brisk pace, ignoring the overcast sky. His mind raced so fast that he could hardly comprehend the thoughts themselves until he slowed them, turned them over in his head, examined them. He stopped at a park, empty, probably because of the worsening weather.

          Instead of making his way to the bench he usually sat at, he meandered over to the swings. It was a strange nostalgic feeling – he hadn’t actually sat on a swing in years. When had the last time been? When he was a kid? Older than that? He gripped the metal chains tight. The small piece of paper seemed to be burning in his pocket, filling him with a strange sense of paranoia, as though someone were watching him this moment, and knew exactly what he had on him.

          Still, so much money… could be a good thing. He could pay off his debt. He could pay off his parent’s house, and his brother’s… He could live anywhere he wanted. He could walk in tomorrow and say “fuck you” to his boss and spit in that smug bastard’s face and do anything he damn well wanted after. He could donate to good causes, put his kid into good schools and leave a hefty trust fund to take care of him, probably do the same for his nieces too…

          The first light drops of rain hit him and he lifted his face to the welcome cooling water. His life was going to completely change. The lives of the people he cared about were going to completely change. All for the better. All thanks to his amazing luck. His paranoia and anxiety washed away in the rain. Taking a deep breath, he stood from the swing, determined to return home and enjoy the rest and best of his life.

          As he pulled his hands from the chain, the world around him flashed, then dimmed, then tingled, then stopped. A sudden pain crumpled his spine, from the top of his skull to his tailbone, as though an invisible giant had suddenly crushed him underfoot and straight into the wood chips of the playground, turning him to instant mush. He felt his heart give one wild thump, and then squeeze tight, so tight that he gasped, but the gasp was hardly more than a smokey cough.

          The news headlines the next day read, “Lottery winner struck by lightning.”