It Was The Strangest Thing.
Sep 19, 2026

Room 114. Teachers, on our lunch break. Miss Modd, the Chair of Special Education, and Miss Utterly, her friend, eat lunch & discuss bands they're crazy about. You brush your hair back from your face & look at me across…

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The Challenge
Sep 18, 2026

[Context: Continuing in Katie’s POV. This field trip to the museum came out of a business proposition Balthasar made to Katie in an earlier section.] A sidelong glance revealed her gambit had succeeded. He was full-on facing the painting. His…

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Best work
Sep 17, 2026

Calling something my best work makes it feel like I don't have best work in my future, and like the other "not named" work isn't best in some other way. I think my narrative feature, THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD, is…

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Pete #2
Sep 17, 2026

(This follows on what you read earlier this week.) We walked the maze of pens, examining the cows waiting to be auctioned. The Wagyu were pretty animals, their black and reddish-brown coats shining in the summer sun like they were…

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Strange Things
Sep 17, 2026

[Context: Picking up Monday's story, but this time from the POV of Katie (Katerina).] Katie had chosen her mark and her shot carefully. Her intent in bringing Balthasar to the museum—in leading him to this chamber, to this specific painting—was…

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Three Poems.
Sep 16, 2026

Never a Bit of A Bother never a bit of a bother never a bother a bit & whoever says you are a bother must be a bit of a twit never, ever a nuisance never, ever a prat &…

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A distant face
Sep 16, 2026

Flore pulled the last tissue from the box Amy held out to her. "I can't explain it," she said, "but when I was crying I pictured my mother's face." "I thought you didn't know what she looked like?" Amy replied.…

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Why Do I Write Like I’m Running Out of Time?
Sep 16, 2026

[Context: I went off-prompt this morning to work on a Substack post.] I’m going to out myself in this post. Buckle up—this one’s raw and vulnerable. But I feel an urge to write on this topic, perhaps because I’m still…

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To Love Another Person is to See the Face of God
Sep 16, 2026

My favorite lyric in the wondrous show that is Les Miserables, is the final line sung in the show and it bears repeating: “…..to love another person is the see the face of God”……and the bright white light of Death…

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Pete #1
Sep 15, 2026

(Note: I'm using these prompts to work on my novel. This is one of the characters.) It’d been cowboyclark, the guy I met on Reddit, who’d taken me to the cattle auction. His actual name was Clark Keis, but I’d…

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I Know That Girl
Sep 15, 2026

When she was 15 years old, she was given a blank book by her mother, filled with pristine pages to write on, and it even had a lock and little key to go with it. Decades later she remembers the…

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I Always Forget.
Sep 15, 2026

Vince sat down at his laptop & automatically keyed in his password. He groaned at the words on his screen: This is not the correct password. Have you forgotten your password? He felt like banging his head on the table.…

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