August 2022 Year of the Tiger Bamboo Shoots Writing Contest Prompts

Okay, let’s do exactly 100 words, or exactly 500 words, Jim Harstad’s favorite kind of challenge.  You knew you’d done some editing, he said, when you pared your work down to a specific number of words.

Here are the August prompts

Jim Harstad
Teachers
Students
Readers
Writers
Bullshit
Truth
Fact
Fiction
Fact that reads like fiction
Fiction that reads like fact
Journal writing
Reading aloud
Never give a inch.  That’s right, a inch.  Not an inch.  A inch.
How can there be any sin in sincere? Where is the good in goodbye?
Jack Nicholson should never have played McMurphy.  He doesn’t even look like him.
Jim told me once, “Writing about death is one of the hardest kinds of writing there is.”

100 words, or 500 words.  You choose.  Or write one of each.  Remember Jim’s good advice:  Always overwrite the piece, then cut the heck out of it.  That’s a lot easier than trying to inch your way up toward a word count number.

By participating in the Bamboo Shoots community, you agree to the following rules:

1. We reserve the right to remove content that promotes hate or gratuitous violence. Be respectful and courteous to others.
2. All contest challenge entries must be submitted by the designated
3. Enter as many times as you like using a trigger/prompt (this page).
4. Contest Challenge entries can be prose (including short stories, nonfiction essays, or whatever you write), poetry, or plays -- or any type of hybrid writing you dream up.
5. Every entry must have a title -- unless you choose to enter a haiku, in which case you can simply enter the word haiku in the title section.
6. All content/entries should be original work. You retain ownership of your entries; however, we may ask to use them elsewhere on the site or on social media to help promote Bamboo Ridge and/or the Bamboo Shoots online writing community.
7. Winners will be announced with all possible speed after the end of each month. Winners receive 10 Bamboo Bucks credit to spend in the BRP online bookstore. Bamboo Bucks have no monetary value outside of the online store.
8. Entries may also be selected for publication in the regular Bamboo Ridge Journal. If your piece is chosen, the editors will contact you via the email address on file.
9. Please note that you need not enter the contest challenge in order to post on Bamboo Shoots. You may post other writing if you choose. We welcome that here:  Click this link to go to Shoot da Breeze.