January 2025 Year of the Dragon Bamboo Shoots Writing Contest Prompts

Happy New Year. I was wondering how we might encourage more writers to participate in our online contest. I asked Eric and Darrell, again, about the car prizes. I was thinking anything but a Tesla.  But they said cars are still a bit over our budget. Even used cars. That don’t run. And have no tires. Or engines.

So then I asked about eating lunch with them as a prize, and they said that would be great, as long as the winner was willing to pay. Same budget issue, they said.

So then I stopped asking them. You know, money doesn’t grow on trees, but, if you follow this contest, you know that Bamboo Bucks do. As mentioned a few times in the past, the Bamboo Bucks tree grows in back of the BRP super secret headquarters at 1324 Rycro — oops, I almost gave away the secret location.

Anywaysies, as Reverend Mark might say, it’s my job to water and take care to the Bucks tree, along with washing Darrell and Eric’s cars. They tell me I have to do it all for love. They say the budget is too small to pay me, so they must be right..

So writers, until further notice, I can still only offer you 10 Bamboo Bucks as a prize. Not 11. Just 10, they tell me, max.

Keeping that fact in mind, here are the January prompts which you can choose to ignore if you want to write about something else. Let’s do 1000 words max.  Remember, we welcome writing in any language, and no translation is required, although providing one might help your writing reach a wider audience.

Happy New Year (Did you guess that would be one of them?)
New Year’s Resolutions (How about that one?)
Raccoons (That one?)
The British Museum (No?)
Sydney, Australia
The Eiffel Tower
Cherries Jubilee
The Twilight Zone
Gaslighting
Gassy
Indigestion
Pepto Bismol
Solid, liquid, gas
Chemistry
Physics
Biology
Earth Sciences
Computer Science
Weird science

Okay, everyone, let’s write.

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.