WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the April Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Wednesday, May 13, 2026 (the day before our next prompt party, since April was interrupted by Spring Break!)

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

What is Word Bank Wednesday?

(in case you missed this last week.)

As writers we know that finding the right words to use in any moment is the thing we lose sleep over. The word is often dangling at the tip of our tongue, or imagination, a step or two out of reach exactly at the time we need it. We have various exercises and practices we do in order to get better at reaching for those words: we write more, we rewrite, we read, we listen, we explore reference materials and research, the list goes on. Word Bank Wednesday is simply one more thing to add to that list. We are going to play with word capture on a weekly basis and start making our own Word Banks to use in all of our writing projects.

Each week I am going to ask you to spend TWO MINUTES creating your own word bank. Each week I am going to present you with a prompt, you are going to set a timer, and, using a paper and a pen (preferably, but no one is watching, so don’t let this rule be the thing that stops you!) you are going to jot down as many words as you can in response to that prompt. If you so desire, your work can be done there. The act of scrambling to gather the words for your word bank is exercise enough. You can keep these collections for projects and prompts of your own choosing, OR…

In addition to the word bank prompt, I will add a potential prompt for you to work on with your newly collected words. It will be completely up to you if you want to spend more time with your words, or if you want to save them for later (I have an A4 notebook with lined and blank pages that is my current word bank notebook).

Let’s get started!

Word Bank Wednesday

Word Bank Prompt

TOOLS:

2 Minute Timer, Pen/pencil, notebook/paper

Step 1:

Set a timer for 2 minutes

Step 2:

In your notebook write down as many words as you can that BEGIN WITH THE LETTER A.

Share

An Example

I love letters, whether as a math teacher, a mom of a kid with a special interest in alphabet lore and alphabet systems from around the world, or an aunt of a toddler just learning his letters, I am all about them. So why not use them for inspiration? This week’s Word Bank Wednesday asks us to write as many words as we can beginning with the letter A.

The word bank I created is as follows:

abandon artery Alex

amble ant artistry

antelope angry Algebra

amp (up!) AHHHH!

alimentary allusion

anxiety answers alligator

aspirational amphibian angle

amplify asthma angel

abuelos angiogram

You may notice that this week I wrote on a blank sheet of paper and have words written in all different directions. This is another Word Bank creation “trick” you may want to try some weeks. Forcing yourself to turn your page around and write “against” the traditional lines can oftentimes open up new pathways to creativity!

Now…

What Can We Do With These Words?

You’ve got some words, if you are crushed for time, you can close your book, move on and come back next week. But, if you are looking for more, here are some ideas for how you can continue to play.

Note: The following prompts may be used individually or together, depending on your needs, desires, and writing availability today.

Potential Prompt(s) 1: Figurative Language Fitness

Whether writing poetry or prose, well-placed, well-crafted figurative language can take your common words to the next level and leave your readers sighing in admiration of the new lenses you are gifting them to see our world through.

The prompt here is simple.

Use the words in your word bank to create

• a metaphor

• a simile

• a line/sentence of hyperbole

• personify the things in your word bank

• a line/sentence using allusion

You may choose to apply one of these prompts to all of your words (for example, perhaps you are interested in only metaphor muscle building today), or trying all five. Maybe you can pick one bullet point each week. It’s up to you. No pressure! Which reminds me: go ahead and be silly, ridiculous, outrageous and push all of the boundaries with your figurative language. Allowing yourself to really stretch beyond what you normally allow in your day to day writing is part of what this practice is for.

Potential Prompt 2: Use the words in a _____

Step 1: Fill in the blank.

• Poets, you will use the words in a poem.

• Prose writers, you will use the words in a story.

Step 2: The topic for your ______ is NIGHTTIME.

That is all. Now, GO WRITE!

Questions, Comments And/Or Reactions

What kinds of words did you collect? Were you able to move beyond nouns now that your only restriction was the beginning letter?

Let us know what you are thinking and if this practice has inspired anything new for you today.

Leave a comment

I will see you again next week.

Happy Writing!

*note about bookshop.org links: I am an affiliate for bookshop.org, which means I will receive a small percentage compensation of any purchase you make on their site using any of the affiliate links I share. This commission is at no additional cost to you.

If you are interested in seeing a collection of many of the books and items I have discussed in Stop Writing Alone over the years, please check out the Stop Writing Alone Bookshop Powered by Bookshop.org.

We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party last night, but that was just step one to our month long Writing Prompt Party adventure. If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Next Thursday!)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for April 2026

This month’s prompt was taken from the first ever prompt tool I bought myself, The Writer’s Toolbox created by Jamie Cat Callan (*this is a bookshop.org link).

The Writer’s Toolbox contains three different writer games:

• “the sticks” (this is my name for the game, I forget what Callan calls them)

• the Protagonist Game

• the Sixth Sense cards

For this month’s Writing Prompt Party I used my favorite of the three (and one of my favorite writing prompt tools in my entire collection), “the sticks.” All three of the games tap into various creative inspirations, but the sticks are unique not necessarily because of what they are, but how we are instructed to use them. Instead of getting one prompt at the beginning of a timed writing, we will get three prompts throughout our writing time. It works in this way:

1. At the beginning of our writing we select a random stick from the group of sticks labeled “FS” for “first sentence. We all use the same first sentence to begin and we set a timer (I set the timer for six minutes during our party). Begin a story using that first sentence as your inspiration.

2. When the timer goes off, pause writing, then select a stick from the second bunch of sticks labeled “NS” for “non sequitur.” When we set the timer again (I used six minutes again), we then continue our story and work to include the non sequitur into the story.

3. When the timer goes off for the second time, we pause writing again. The final stick is selected from the sticks labeled “LS” for “last straw.” With this last straw we now work to conclude our story. Set the timer for one last time (I like to give the group an extra minute or two to help with wrapping up, last night we set it for 8 minutes).

I am continually amazed by the way the interruptions in writing tend to serve to focus me more than distract me. It runs counter to what I instictually think this writing exercise would do. I have been using this particular tool since the early 2000s and I always recommend it. I found it in the bargain section of my Barnes & Noble, but have bought numerous boxes subsequently in various online shops as gifts and giveaways over the years.

Your Prompt/Exercise

Start a story with the following sentence (For your first draft, set a timer for 5-6 minutes):

I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink

***AFTER THE TIMER GOES OFF, READ THE NEXT INSTRUCTION***

_

_

_

Include the following non sequitur in your story (set your timer again for another 5-6 minutes to complete this task):

On the following Friday, we packed our bags and planned our escape.

***AFTER THE TIMER GOES OFF, READ THE NEXT INSTRUCTION***

_

_

_

Include the following last straw in the conclusion of your story (set your timer for anywhere from 5-8 minutes to complete this task):

the time he caught a fly ball

The Sticks

Here is the “FS” or “first sentence” stick:

Here is the “NS” or “non sequitur” stick:

And, finally, here is the “LS” or “last straw” stick:

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

*note about bookshop.org links: I am an affiliate for bookshop.org, which means I will receive a small percentage compensation of any purchase you make on their site using any of the affiliate links I share. This commission is at no additional cost to you.

If you are interested in seeing a collection of many of the books and items I have discussed in Stop Writing Alone over the years, please check out the Stop Writing Alone Bookshop Powered by Bookshop.org.

What is a Word Bank?

Way back in my school days (as a student, not a teacher), I was given word banks, rectangles at the top of a worksheet filled with lists of words we recently learned, or were already expected to know. So, in short, word banks are just collections of words typically gathered around some sort of theme. However, Word Banks seldomly stand alone. The bottom of the worksheets from my school days left space and instruction for what to do with the words. The activities were endless because, as we writers know, words can be used in so many wonderful ways.

What is Word Bank Wednesday?

As writers we also know that finding the right words to use in any moment is the thing we lose sleep over. The word is often dangling at the tip of our tongue, or imagination, a step or two out of reach exactly at the time we need it. We have various exercises and practices we do in order to get better at reaching for those words: we write more, we rewrite, we read, we listen, we explore reference materials and research, the list goes on. Word Bank Wednesday is simply one more thing to add to that list. We are going to play with word capture on a weekly basis and start making our own Word Banks to use in all of our writing projects.

Each week I am going to ask you to spend TWO MINUTES creating your own word bank. Each week I am going to present you with a prompt, you are going to set a timer, and, using a paper and a pen (preferably, but no one is watching, so don’t let this rule be the thing that stops you!) you are going to jot down as many words as you can in response to that prompt. If you so desire, your work can be done there. The act of scrambling to gather the words for your word bank is exercise enough. You can keep these collections for projects and prompts of your own choosing, OR…

In addition to the word bank prompt, I will add a potential prompt for you to work on with your newly collected words. It will be completely up to you if you want to spend more time with your words, or if you want to save them for later (I have an A4 notebook with lined and blank pages that is my current word bank notebook).

Let’s get started!

Our First Word Bank Wednesday

Word Bank Prompt

TOOLS:

2 Minute Timer, Pen/pencil, notebook/paper

Step 1:

Set a timer for 2 minutes

Step 2:

In your notebook write down everything YOU HEAR.

Share

An Example

It is strangely quiet over here right now, but these are the words I came up with during my two minutes of listening.

The word bank I created is as follows:

car rumbling engine

tinnitus riiing…

pen scratch inhale exhale

drive away footfall on the ceiling

bird chirp chirp chirp robin

(I’m actually surprised there’s no airplane — in my neighborhood that’s almost always an audible guarantee!)

Now…

What Can We Do With These Words?

You’ve got some words, if you are crushed for time, you can close your book, move on and come back next week. But, if you are looking for more, here are some ideas for how you can continue to play.

Note: The following prompts may be used individually or together, depending on your needs, desires, and writing availability today.

Potential Prompt(s) 1: Figurative Language Fitness

Whether writing poetry or prose, well-placed, well-crafted figurative language can take your common words to the next level and leave your readers sighing in admiration of the new lenses you are gifting them to see our world through.

The prompt here is simple.

Use the words in your word bank to create

• a metaphor

• a simile

• a line/sentence of hyperbole

• personify the things in your word bank

• a line/sentence using allusion

You may choose to apply one of these prompts to all of your words (for example, perhaps you are interested in only metaphor muscle building today), or trying all five. Maybe you can pick one bullet point each week. It’s up to you. No pressure! Which reminds me: go ahead and be silly, ridiculous, outrageous and push all of the boundaries with your figurative language. Allowing yourself to really stretch beyond what you normally allow in your day to day writing is part of what this practice is for.

Potential Prompt 2: Use the words in a _____

Step 1: Fill in the blank.

• Poets, you will use the words in a poem.

• Prose writers, you will use the words in a story.

Step 2: The topic for your ______ is TIME.

That is all. Now, GO WRITE!

Questions, Comments And/Or Reactions

So, what do you think? Is Word Bank Wednesday a practice you think you can add to your writing life? Do you think it is something you can benefit from? Let us know what you are thinking and if this practice has inspired anything new for you today.

Leave a comment

I will see you again next week.

Happy Writing!

*note about bookshop.org links: I am an affiliate for bookshop.org, which means I will receive a small percentage compensation of any purchase you make on their site using any of the affiliate links I share. This commission is at no additional cost to you.

If you are interested in seeing a collection of many of the books and items I have discussed in Stop Writing Alone over the years, please check out the Stop Writing Alone Bookshop Powered by Bookshop.org.

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the March Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Tuesday, March 31, 2026

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party last week, but that was just step one to our month long Writing Prompt Party adventure. If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (This Thursday!)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for March 2026

This month’s prompt was taken from The World Builder’s Journal of Legendary Adventure. I selected this tool because, at the time of the live Writing Prompt Party, my husband was off with “the guys” starting a brand new Dungeon’s & Dragons group. The book is from Clarkson Potter Publishers. I found it in a local comic book shop

This is another prompt tool that is designed and sold as a journal. Each page has a prompt at the top of the page, a line to put the date, and then the rest of the page is covered in lines to write on. What makes this journal unique is that it isn’t designed for writers, it is designed for people who play, or want to begin playing Dungeons & Dragons. The prompts are designed to help build storytelling skills for participants in role playing games.However, as fiction writers, there is so much here for us to use as a jumping off point into stories of our own. While some prompts are quite specifically designed for D&D, using place names, character types and scenarios that might only be familiar to hard core fans, many speak of quests, journeys, stops off in pubs and conflicts with interesting characters any of our protagonists can tango with.

I have enjoyed using this book for our writing prompt parties and can see how fantasy writers might find it especially engaging.

Your Prompt*

Write a story about:

What is a secret your character would die to protect?

*We actually read aloud three different prompts. The third page’s prompt, which was the agreed upon challenge, is written above and shown in the picture below, but I will include the other two prompts as well, in case aspects of them (or the prompts themselves) inspire you more this month! (I include these because I found a little of each of them sprinkled into my first draft!)

First prompt read:

The dangerous life of an adventurer is full of ghosts. Write about someone you have lost along the way. How did you deal with that loss?

Second prompt read:

There is an old man in your village who is very spry, but he is believed to be hundreds of years old. What is the secret to his vitality?

The Page

Below is a picture of the page (the pages are unnumbered) of the book we used as our March Writing Prompt.

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the February Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Saturday, February 28, 2026 (or, really, any time before the March 2026 prompt is posted since I shared this month’s prompt so late!)

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

…and this one is very late.

We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party before my mid-month break, but I complete forgot to post the prompt before I signed off for the week and a half (insert facepalm here). February is a short month already, so there’s going to be a bit of a squeeze in turnaround time for all of this, but feel free to participate whenever you are ready, even if it is in March.

If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Normally next week, but this time it will be TOMORROW!)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for February 2026

This month’s prompt is taken from the Create A Story book from Chartwell Books.

This book is sold as a journal, but there is hardly enough room to complete a story on the lines provided. Regardless, I am a big fan of the prompts within and the book overall. The book is broken up into 10 different section by genre of prompt.There are just about 20 prompts in each genre. Each page has a one line prompt at the top of the page, lines to write on and, beneath the lines a list of 15 words to use in your story.

A critique of this book each time we use it is that the list of words tend to lean the story into a direction that makes the prompt feel prescriptive. This month, during our meeting the attendees came up with a way to shake things up: Each attendee was given the power to veto two words from the list and add two words of their own. As a result, our prompt went in a completely new direction.

Your Prompt

Write a story about:

A PERSON WHO IS GUIDED BY CUPID IN THEIR DREAMS AND STARTS A MATCHMAKING SERVICE

Use these words in your story:

arrow, fish, love, match, monkey,

thunderstorm, curiosity, meddle, mistake, opposite,

pencil, vomit, destiny, predict, oracle

The Page

Below is a picture of the page (page 45) of the book we used. In pencil I crossed out the words that were vetoed by the group and I wrote in the new words added. Please feel free to use or not use whichever words serve you — and your story — best!

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (LINK BELOW)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (after the party)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction!

This is the post where you get your official link and invite to the party (in case you missed it on our calendar of events).

This is for EVERYONE

In case it wasn’t made clear, Writing Prompt Parties are open to all writers. There is no paywall and there is no level of expertise required. If you want to have some fun with fiction, then come on over and join us!

The Date, Time & Link

The February 2026 Writing Prompt Party will be held on right now, Thursday, February 12, 2026, 6pm Eastern time. Here is your link to join:

Nicole Rivera is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83729459032?pwd=xy5qP6gZQpvhm6zlmYrmZcvlv6v1np.1

Meeting ID: 837 2945 9032
Passcode: FebWRITE

I hope to see you there, but remember, if you can’t make it, the prompt will be posted shortly after the meeting is over.

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Any Questions?

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the January Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Sunday January 31, 2026

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party last night but there’s still more to come. If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Next week)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for January 2026

This month’s prompt is taken from a special edition of Rory’s Story Cubes that I had never used before: Rory’s Story Cubes Actions.

This box, like the classic Rory’s Story Cubes, contains nine 6-sided cubes with drawings on each side. The difference in this box is that each image shows a character doing something. The original Rory’s Story Cubes box has drawings that are mostly objects that can be interpreted literally or figuratively. The group present at last night’s Live call was quite surprised by how these action images shifted our thinking in new ways. It was a challenge for all of us, but, as it was a first time go around for everyone present, it has piqued our curiosity for further experimentation. Please let us know how this prompt inspires (or challenges) your creativity this month!

Your Prompt

Write a story including all nine of the actions shown on the cubes (see photo of the cubes in the next section). Here is the group’s interpretation of the images on the cubes.

brick laying | robbing | climbing a tree

cutting paper | hurt finger/hand | walking with friend/partner while pointing

sneaking/peeking around a corner | fighting/ “rough housing” | hanging or doing a pull-up

The Cubes

Below is a screenshot of the cubes rolled during the meeting. A description of our interpretation of what action is being shown in each, if you see something else, please feel free to use your own vision in your writing.

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the December Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Wednesday, December 31, 2025

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

Please excuse my flu and all of the strange delays it has caused this month!

We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party this week on Zoom (I had extra tissues on the side!), but there’s still more to come. If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Next week)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for December 2025

This month’s prompt is taken from COMPLETE FICTION: Igniting Your Imagination with Every Page! from Picadilly.

I found this book in the Bargain section of my local Barnes & Noble. Every page has a prompt and a related image on the facing page. The prompts are a bit verbose, more like story starters than we might be used to in this group, and the images are vivid and often other-worldly. While there is no mention of this that I can find anywhere in the book, it feels as though some AI is behind the entire production (please let me know in the comments how you feel about using AI tools for writing prompts). It is, like most Picadilly books, designed to be a journal as each prompt tops a lined page, but, honestly, I can’t imagine anyone fitting an appropriate story in the space provided!

The book is not categorized in any way so I simply asked one of our attendees to pick a number and asked if he’d prefer I count from the front of the book or the end of the book to find our prompt. He said, “The middle.” So, here’s what we ended up with.

Your Prompt

Write a story based on the following scenario. Feel free to use the accompanyinf picture (below) as further inspiration:

There’s a new artist in the Chelsea District of New York, and I have been dying to get tickets to his next exhibition, but it’s completely sold out. Luckily, I have a connection, and I can’t wait to attend. The reviews from his last show proclaimed the event as otherworldly, exotic , and intense. As I entered the gallery, it felt like his paintings were alive. Walking around, one particular piece caught my eye. I was captivated; it was like his work had put a spell on me. I was being pulled into the art piece — literally. Was is magic? Was he human? Was this happening to me?

The Pages

There are no page numbers in this book, so all i can say is that this is the 23rd page from what I estimated to be the middle of the book.

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the November Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Sunday, November 30, 2025

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Next week)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for November 2025

This month’s prompt is taken from Rory’s Story Cubes (a special request by and part of the inspiration for my NaNo2.0 writing project this year!).

This box contains nine 6-sided cubes, each with a different image on each side. The goal is to roll the nine cubes and write a story incorporating the nine images depicted. You may use the pictures literally or figuratively.

This prompt tool is a group favorite because it is incredibly reusable and, without fail, many writers find that the images trigger our brains to “think differently” about making connections, metaphors, or story twists as we are under the time pressure to complete a draft in the writing prompt party!

I took a photo of the actual cubes rolled (seen below), but here I will name the pictures on the faces of the cubes as they appear to me, if you have a different interpretation when you look at the pictures for yourself, please feel free to use that or, like I mentioned above, feel free to use a more figurative interpretation (ie. “idea” for the picture of the light bulb) of any of the images.

Your Prompt

Write a story including these nine things (in any order):

abacus

airplane

question mark

fish

turtle

sheep

arrow

rainbow

lightbulb

The Cubes

This is an image of me holding up the Rory’s Story Cubes MAX box containing the nine cubes rolled in tonight’s meeting.

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Leave a comment

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (LINK BELOW)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (after the party)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction!

This is the post where you get your official link and invite to the party (in case you missed it on our calendar of events).

This is for EVERYONE

In case it wasn’t made clear, Writing Prompt Parties are open to all writers. There is no paywall and there is no level of expertise required. If you want to have some fun with fiction, then come on over and join us!

The Date, Time & Link

The November 2025 Writing Prompt Party will be held on Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6pm Eastern time. Here is your link to join:

Topic: Stop Writing Alone FREE EVENTS November 2025

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83729459032?pwd=wXJsPEC7XuUnjz9OUHshREbVtiGybi.1

Meeting ID: 837 2945 9032

Passcode: NovWRITE

I hope to see you there, but remember, if you can’t make it, the prompt will be posted shortly after the meeting is over.

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Any Questions?

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the October Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Friday, October 31, 2025

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction! (Next week)

Those of you who attended the party do not need this, but for everyone else, here is the prompt we selected this month!

Your Writing Prompt for October 2025

This month’s prompt is taken from the book Create A Story from Chartwell Books.

This journal is organized by prompt genres including:

• historical fiction

• mystery & suspense

• romance

• life experience

• comedy

• fantasy

• action & adventure

• horror

• science fiction

• western

Each page contains a one sentence story prompt and a list of 14-15 words to include in your story.

While the book calls itself a journal, the pages do not leave enough room for these stories to be completed, but I tend to recommend this book often anyway. For this month, in the spirit of Halloween, I asked one of our participants to pick a page at random from the horror section. She selected page 159, here’s the prompt on that page:

Your Prompt

Write a story about:

A PERSON WAKES UP EVERY DAY EXPERIENCING A NEW DEATH.

Use these words in your story:

dream, reality, imagination, loop, control, vision,

undone, choice, plague, stars, disquieted,

grisly, spell, inheritance, pain

The Page

Here is page 159 of the book (Can you believe this is how many lines they give us to write this story?!). The little cat in the corner of the page is the icon for the HORROR section of the book.

Our “Rules”

Our major goal is to get you writing, so, in the big-picture sense of things there are no real “rules” for how you use this prompt, however, for participation in next week’s story sharing thread, there will be guidelines in the hopes that it aids participants in not only writing each month, but also being able to read and share as many stories as possible.

If you wish to share your story next week in the thread:

1. We are looking for fresh flash fiction! In other words, the story must be written from this prompt. Of course, creativity wins the day and if all aspects of the prompt are not adhered to that is fine, but if you are just sharing stories you’ve written in the past that clearly have no connection to this prompt, you are missing the point of us WRITING TOGETHER!

2. 1,000 words or less, please! I have high hopes to read through all stories in the thread and hope our community members do as well. Keeping our stories on the short side definitely makes this a more reasonable ask.

3. Share links, not stories! Do not copy and paste your story into the comments section. You may share a link to your fiction Substack page, or a read-only Google Doc of your story.

4. Don’t stress this. This is not a competition in any sense of the word, this is an opportunity to come together around a prompt and celebrate all of our creative minds and processes together. While I know there is no way for me to liberate you from any of the fears that may naturally come from sharing your fiction publicly, please know that this is not a forum for judgement, but for celebration. This is a PARTY and I am looking for cheerleaders all around. Critique is for another day, and a completely different forum.

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Now… GO WRITE!

With all that said and done, LET’S WRITE TOGETHER! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Check your inbox next Thursday for the thread post where you can share it with us!

HAPPY WRITING!

1. A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (LINK BELOW)

2. A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (after the party)

3. A thread post where you can share what you wrote based on the prompt for the community to read and share your fiction!

This is the post where you get your official link and invite to the party (in case you missed it on our calendar of events).

This is for EVERYONE

In case it wasn’t made clear, Writing Prompt Parties are open to all writers. There is no paywall and there is no level of expertise required. If you want to have some fun with fiction, then come on over and join us!

The Date, Time & Link

The October 2025 Writing Prompt Party will be held on Thursday, October 9, 2025, 6pm Eastern time. Here is your link to join:

Topic: Stop Writing Alone FREE EVENTS October 2025

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83729459032?pwd=5OhzPXMbKuyHUpCDRTVlanoig512XK.1

Meeting ID: 837 2945 9032

Passcode: OctWRITE

I hope to see you there, but remember, if you can’t make it, the prompt will be posted shortly after the meeting is over.

Subscribe & Share

If you want to make sure you don’t miss a beat with these monthly prompt parties, make sure you are subscribed to Stop Writing Alone.

Subscribe now

And, if you know of another writer who would love to participate, please make sure you share this post with them so they can do the same!

Share

Any Questions?

If you have any comments or questions about this, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.

Leave a comment

WRITE, READ, and RESTACK!

1. WRITE and share your story based on the September Prompt:

2. READ the other stories shared in the thread, and

3. RESTACK the stories you read in Substack Notes to expand the discoverability of all the participants in this prompt party! (One of my fav ways to do this is by highlighting a favorite sentence and restacking with that. More about restacking here.)

The rules:

• Your fiction MUST be written to the prompt in the previous post.

• Your fiction must not exceed 1,000 words.

• We will only read Substack or view-only Google Doc links, in other words…

• This thread is for LINKS ONLY*

• Post by 11:59 Eastern time Tuesday, September 30, 2025

What happens next:

• You read the stories shared in this thread and share them (New to restacking? See this article.)

• We read the stories in this thread an share them

• The other participants read the stories in this thread and share them

• All participants enjoy expanded exposure for their story and fiction Substack pages!

*Note: Please use this thread for links and likes only—share your comments with the writers on their Substack page OR in your Note when you restack them!