Hosting

Internet writing communities

For the past two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of hosting the #WritingCommunity’s #vss365 for its writers in Twitter and BlueSky, where I issued a one-word prompt every day. The story/poem can only be the length of a post, which is 280 characters in Twitter and 300 in Bsky. I’ve been participating in the exercise of writing with these prompt words for the past two and a half years, but it’s the first time I had ever hosted.

As I’m an illustrator, I hit on an idea of posting the prompts as playing cards, and it generated a tremendous amount of engagement. Here are the fifteen cards, and some selected posts.

(Vss are mine unless it’s tagged otherwise. If you click on the prompt word, you can explore many other posts.)

Camila Hamel@ha-ok.bsky.social

Oh, the joy that springs when the #emporium of delights opens its spacious tent, bustling and brimming with every conceivable delicacy, every curiosity. From the loudest vendor to the wiliest performer, all there to amuse, to amaze, to separate you from your last sou.

❈

At one #fathom, I can still understand the message underneath your words. I see it drifting in its transparency, greenish and salty. But at two, the inferences are murky, ambiguous. At three fathoms, I grow cold because so much distance does not breed mystery, rather, indifference.

❈

‪Genna‬ ‪@doublepiscess.bsky.social‬

Lay me elegantly upon a #balustrade. Chip away at my stone façade. Mold my arms in a roundness, where the cool of marble is warmed. Smooth my heart into the curve of its bones. Let me age gracefully.

❈

Some of us dwell in the #penumbra of our dreams, others, of our understanding. Trapped in the long cycles of desiring, we cry, To waste time is to live in shadow. Though purpose be thus obscured, the wise one knows that lucid thought comes to light when faith shines overhead.

❈

Nomenclature@hillshrills.bsky.social‬

Cats and children possess secret maps in their head guiding each incognito step under the noses of adults too oblivious to notice hidden everywhere, little treasures.

❈

‪Raven‬ ‪@ravenbranhard.bsky.social‬

In the breaking light there’s a subtle balance an unspoken truce— trees stand together in their fragile equity, the copse a silent choir of branches, a green cathedral along the winding path where every bough finds its place in the sun.

❈

‪Andy Perrin‬ ‪@andyperrincycling.bsky.social‬

the involution 
of our essence 

a tightening 
for the laborers 

a constriction 
of hope 

a charged 
powder keg 

the inevitability 
of revolution

❈

The grounds were dotted with bristly piñons. The llamas brushed by them, leaving #flocculent presents for the birds to line their nests with. My wheel was never still and the loom was always full. The colors richly told the stories of our clan, lines which echo our own.

❈

Robert J. W.@robertjw4688.bsky.social‬

#Obstreperous society
worships only the cracks
in the mirror

when the whole house
is our deity.
There is a choice between
stars and voids

placed at our feet,
and we must choose

the guiding light
every time
or we will succumb
to bitter abandonment.
Be the beauty

and just be.

❈

‪Justine Gardner‬ ‪@jbgrumpstone.bsky.social‬

Kindling Dead soldiers fill one drawer in the old desk: hundreds of empty pens. He couldn’t throw them away, preferring to rail against #myopic industrialists manufacturing for the single-use. His journals, filled with the pens’ black blood, are to be burned, per his final instructions.

❈

The #interregnum would last no long than the time it takes a leaf to fall. This was the promise, broken by those with no stake, a thousand suns ago. We only know an unruly world and see only barren trees. But when the rain washes the land, and buds brighten the branch, a better season will come.

❈

Indigenous Soul@GeneVatow

In the interregnum between karma and chakra, the myopic choose chimes’ ring in a far more spiritual and incognito copse. Drawn from fathoms of many lifetimes and carried to the penumbral emporium, the quantum balustrade of grace.

—

Illustration by the author

If you want to participate in the fun and games in either BlueSky or Twitter, here are some prompt and other useful writers’ hashtags:

Twitter/X
#vss365 (in both platforms
#vsshorror
#vssdaily
#vsspoem
#vssfantasy
#only8words  @only8words
#readerscommunity
 #booktwitter
BlueSky
All the ones above, plus:
#booksky  
#vssmut
#whispr