The dust is settling finally and we wanted to start a hobby together. My husband – T – and I both like to write, but he is not a native English speaker. He wants to improve his English skills and I want to improve my general writing skills – not to mention make it a habit. And what better way to get to know the innermost thoughts of another than to explore the stories our minds weave?
Every two weeks, one of us will come up with a prompt, alternating the chooser. It can be just about anything – a place from a dream, a theme that is close to our hearts, a piece of news that got us thinking. Then, we individually write a short story (as we try this out, we are going to start with a limit of 25 standard pages in Microsoft Word, 11 pt font) and in two weeks we reconvene to share what brilliant imaginations we dreamt, spread out on the pages.
Perhaps we’ll learn a thing or two about ourselves. Perhaps we’ll plant the seed for a longer, deeper project. Perhaps we’ll inspire you to join us.
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Prompt #1: Write a story in which everyone has the opportunity to sell their soul to something.
“False Idols” – D. N. Ashwell
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“The Decision” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #2: Write a story that happens in the (or pertaining to) rain.
“Gaia’s Golem” – D. N. Ashwell
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“Under the Water” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #3: Write a story about a haunting.
“Mourning a Mother” – D. N. Ashwell
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“One Day” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #4: Write a story of a haunting that is happy/funny.
“The Shifting Furniture” – D. N. Ashwell
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“The Longest Rest…Rest?” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #5: Write a story in which the last line changes everything.
“The Android” – D. N. Ashwell
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“Visiting” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #6: Write a story inspired by this robot illustration.
“Topside” – D. N. Ashwell
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“Robert the Robot” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #7: Write a story involving a dog.
“A Little Floof” – D. N. Ashwell
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“A Trip without Skiing” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #8: Write a story centered around a winter holiday.
“The Wormwood Letters – D. N. Ashwell
[Blurb Coming Soon]
“One Thing Missing during Christmas” – T. L. Ashwell
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Prompt #9: Write a story with arctic aliens.
“Frozen in Time” – D. N. Ashwell
A routine survey of an exoplanet turns into a task of survival when Rynn crash lands on a world of ice with anomalous deposits. Without the survey data, she won’t get paid. Stranded until help can arrive, she strikes out into the cold, but the world is not as barren as she expected.
“The Ph.D. Project” – T. L. Ashwell
Thomas, a poor Ph.D. student desperate to graduate, is saddled with a less than ideal research project on a remote arctic planet. Little did he know, the planet of Greycube is not as desolate as anticipated.
Prompt #10: Write a story where everyone has been given a divine gift, but no one knows what it/theirs is.
“A Gift for Us All” – D. N. Ashwell
On shore leave near the end of their contract together as crew of a mining ship, Liselle, Adria, and Djikstren discuss an article claiming each person has a divine gift, or charism. In a few weeks, their futures will once again be in their hands and they can choose to follow or deny their gifts.
“A Hopeful Gift” – T. L. Ashwell
A family fights the elements to survive a dying land and find a land of greenery and warmth, each with a divine gift to call their own. Snow doesn’t know what hers is, yet everything may hinge upon it.
Prompt #11: Write a story about the birth of a great art piece.
“PROJECT ATLAS” – D. N. Ashwell
When a two friends find a device believed to be a fragment of the god who destroyed the world, they are driven by curiosity to follow it. At the end of the path they find the opposite: a person who gave their life to preserve a piece of it.
“Two Sisters” – T. L. Ashwell
Year by year, the land turns whiter, the frost encroaching on the green plains. In a desperate bid to save their settlement, Hawk and Goose erect a magical stone circle, but it may already be too late.
Prompt #12: Write a story from a machine’s point of view.
“The Eye at the Center of the Galaxy” – D. N. Ashwell
At the center of the galaxy sits a Watcher. With strict non-interference protocols in place, the Watcher archives the comings and goings at the galactic core. Waiting. Recording. Evaluating. More than 30,000 years later, a Caretaker returns for its report, hopeful for a replacement candidate among the species its structure has encountered, but it’s findings are not what expected.
“The Demons’ Code” by T. L. Ashwell
What’s a lazy demon to do demon to do these days but to make a machine do his work? Belphegor, the prime demon of sloth, decides to create a coding language and subsequent program to automate the process of tricking humans into the seven deadly sins.
Prompt #13: Write a story inspired by the song “Feed the Machine” by Poor Man’s Poison.
“Rewritten” by D. N. Ashwell
Therapy is for everyone, especially those struck down by unfortunate circumstances. If you are subjected to the blows of life, the Department of Premature Departure has your back. As a Therapist for the state-funded Care Center, Fatima provides essential care to the emotionally downtrodden and grieving, getting them back up on their feet with just a little tweak of a their memories. But when some of her clients are flagged for re-treatment, she begins to doubt the efficacy of her work and decides to dig into the reason. Little did she know, what she would find would cast the world in a whole new light.
“The Interview” by T. L. Ashwell
It’s the final interview, the last hoop for Otto to land his dream job, but he’s up against seven others in a challenge for a prized position: a well-paid job, for once. But lo and behold, the interviewers are looking for something different than he expected.
Current Prompt: Write a story about a person who can jump into another’s body for a week, but the other person’s mind is still cognizant.
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The Dragon's Den 
