February 2026 Let's Write Together

PROMPT POST!

It’s a brand new year of our month-long Let’s Write Together Prompt Party!

…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.

***SPECIAL NOTE***

I will share this again on our thread post, but keep in mind that if you happen to fall deeply in love with the story that is birthed from this prompt and have aspirations to submit it for publication, many publications are not interested in previously published material.

THIS SHARING OF YOUR STORY WILL COUNT AS AN ONLINE PUBLICATION IN MANY CASES.

Please do not share your story if you think you may want to seek publication for it in one of these platforms! The absolute last thing I want to do with this party is stymie your publication growth!

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

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.

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!

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!