It’s time to write to our July prompt!
We had our LIVE Writing Prompt Party last night. That was step one to our month long Writing Prompt Party adventure. If you are new to this whole thing, this is our monthly pattern:
A live Writing Prompt Party OPEN TO ALL WRITERS (DONE!)
A prompt post sharing the writing prompt with the entire community (THIS post!)
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 July 2026
This month’s prompt was inspired by the epic everyone’s talking about: Homer’s The Odyssey.
I’ve been especially tuned into this tale since my husband (high school English teacher) was teaching The Odyssey this semester. As a result every Odyssey item in Barnes & Noble catches my eye, so on the afternoon before our July Writing Prompt Party I found myself flipping through a special Odyssey issue of LIFE magazine when I saw an article called Homer’s Monsters, Gods, and Mortals.
I saw that and thought, Can that be our prompt tonight? A god, a monster, and a mortal… what could we do with that? I decided I’d present it to the group to see what they thought.
Before the meeting I found a random god generator and a random monster generator. During the meeting we decided we would also need something to prompt us into the *what’s happening* to these characters, so I pulled out my ever-faithful prompt tool of The Storymatic classic to determine our mortal and our story element.
Putting that all together, here’s what we came up with for this month’s epic prompt.
Your Prompt/Exercise
Select at least one of these GODS
CHAOS LAKSHMI *GOD OF YOUR OWN CREATION
Select at least one of these MONSTERS
THUNDERBIRD DJINN *MONSTER OF YOUR OWN CREATION
Include these characteristics for your MORTAL
DEAF SHOPLIFTER
Write a story about a long awaited invitation.
*we did not use the “own creation” option in the live called due to time constraints, but I did offer it up, so I offer it to you as well!
The Elements and How We Found Them
Here’s a screen shot of the random gods:
While I pulled up the random monster generator, the ever-diligent Jackie Dana added the following quick and dirty details she found about the gods into the chat:
2026-07-23 18:22:00 From Jackie Dana to Everyone:
Rather than a traditional, worshiped deity, Greek cosmogony describes Chaos as the primordial void or a confused, formless mass. As the very first thing to exist, it was the foundation from which all other entities emerged.
2026-07-23 18:23:01 From Jackie Dana to Everyone:
Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity. As the consort of Lord Vishnu, she represents both material abundance and spiritual fulfillment. She is commonly depicted as a beautiful, four-armed woman draped in red and gold, seated on a lotus, and surrounded by elephants.
Here’s our random monster screenshot:
And once again, Jackie got to work immediately, dropping these snippets into the chat:
2026-07-23 18:24:26 From Jackie Dana to Everyone:
The “thunderbird” animal primarily refers to a legendary creature in Native American mythology rather than a scientifically recognized biological species. However, the legend is often linked to real-world birds of prey and prehistoric creatures.
Native American Mythology
In the oral traditions of many Indigenous cultures, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, and Eastern Woodlands, the thunderbird is a powerful, supernatural spirit. [
Abilities: It is believed to control the upper realms of the sky. Its massive wings are said to cause thunder, while lightning flashes from its eyes or beak.
Symbology: Often depicted as an enormous bird of prey, it is seen as a protector of humans and a bringer of rain and renewal.
2026-07-23 18:25:32 From Jackie Dana to Everyone:
A djinn (also spelled jinn or jinni) is a supernatural being in Arabian mythology and Islamic belief. Created from smokeless fire, they share the earth with humans, possess free will, and can choose between good and evil. While often known as wish-granting genies in Western folklore, traditional djinn are complex, mortal beings subject to judgment.
Finally, for our mortal and story element, I selected the following three cards from The Storymatic classic deck:
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:
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!
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.
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.
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.
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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!
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