Year of the Horse Writing Contest: JULY Prompts

There is no word limit for your entries. HOWEVER, we are also looking for haiku entries, if you are so inclined : ) The triggers for this month are lines taken from the following two texts:

1. this helps make his day
2. I’ll show you
3. she didn’t sound enthusiastic about it
4. why was she doing that?
5. holding her breath
6. that’s the word
7. they just aren’t themselves
8. some of them not even born yet

The large shed behind the sagging, termite eaten house was in the process of falling in on the mountain of junk that it held, sheets of its rusted corrugated roofing slapping and bonging in the wind. Danielle Baker and her brother Kimo stood in the high weeds off to the side of the dirt driveway looking at the damaged roof, and then around at the windy landscape. The parched, grassy foothills above the town of Kaunakakai baked in the mid-morning heat, the wind steady from the east, and those flapping pieces of roofing had kept Danielle awake half the night. The metallic bonging sounds had been random, on and off, with long silent stretches that would be broken by a sudden, rapid slapping, so in the morning she had asked Kimo to help her nail it down. It occurred to her that she hadn’t been out on this back section of the property since the first time she’d seen it.

BAMBOO RIDGE Issue Number 89, Spring 2006, New Moon

1. they were talking about her now
   From “Katherine Higata and the Four Japanese Ladies,” by Barbara Hamby
2. it’s a better world
   From “A High and Beautiful Wave,” by John Wythe White
3. I must ask my mother
   From “A Stone, A Tongue,” by Lori Lei Hokyo Misaka
4. giddy with power
   From “Bernie Aragon, Jr. Looks for Love,” by Veronica Montes
5. there’s no cure
   From “Witness,” by R. Zamora Linmark
6. she pronounces vegetable in four syllables
   From “The Chicharon Widows,” by Amalia B. Bueno
7. no can blame us for trying
   From “Hank’s Place,” by J. Freen
8. and then he did feel guilty
   From “Walter and the Dream Girls,” by Michael Little

From “Data Migration,” by Steve Shrader

we’re out at dusk image gathering
pale ones and the brilliant fading
small fleshy ones and one as hard as rock
that falls from the sky in a tongue of flame

 

Use one of the prompts to trigger your piece AND if you use one of the lines in your piece, your mojo is strong : )

Rules:

1. You can submit one entry per month. All entries must be posted on the Bamboo Shoots page of the BRP site between July 1 and July 31 at 2:00 p.m. HST.

2. 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.

*Don’t forget to click the “Year of the Horse Contest” button for your entry.

3. Every entry must have a title — unless you choose to enter a haiku, in which case you could simply enter the word haiku in the title section — unless you do have a title — and the title does NOT count in the word total.

4. In the section below the title where it says:

A blurb about your piece or a good quote from your piece:

You MUST — REALLY NOT KIDDING — include your word count.

Your entry should look like this:

Title: I Don’t Get It / or just Haiku

A blurb about your piece or a good quote from your piece: 205 words

Body:

He got out of his car, came to my window, asked me to roll it down — which I foolishly did — and punched me in the face. . . . blah blah blah . . . Compared to me he was pretty bloody by the time we finished fighting for no reason I could figure out.

5. Winners will be announced with all possible BR speed after 2:00 p.m. HST, July 31, and they’ll win 10 Bamboo Bucks credit to spend in the BRP online bookstore. WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! And maybe you’ll be published in a future issue of Bamboo Ridge : )

6. Don’t forget that 29 entries from July 2010 through June 2011 were selected for publication in the landmark 100th issue of BAMBOO RIDGE. So you never know. Your piece might be published in a future issue : )

Good luck to you, and write like you’re getting summer hot : )

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.