Welcome to the inaugural Creative Writing Monthly. Think of the challenge as an opportunity to write something a little longer than the short flash fiction prompts we all love to participate in daily. Each month Greg’s Blog will prompt the writer with a concept, topic, and/or genre to help jumpstart the creative process. All you have to do is write. The length of your work should end up somewhere between 750 and 1500 words. That falls right on the boundary between a longer work of flash fiction and a short short story. Thus, giving you the opportunity to develop characters and build more elaborate plotlines. Something that is difficult to attain when responding to word prompts, sentence limits and 100-word maximum stories.

I understand longer stories take longer to write, edit, consternate over, rework, stew about, and/or rewrite… As such the inaugural edition of CWM will run for two months, until July 31st and will include a glimpse of August’s prompt. Subsequent challenge posts will consist of the current challenge plus a glimpse of upcoming prompts for the next two challenges. In essence, three full months for those who prefer a headstart. For the rest of us who like to procrastinate, just follow my lead and keep telling yourself you work better under pressure!

The plan is to drop each monthly challenge on the last Thursday of the preceding month. So if you want to try something with more meat on the bones, check back for a new challenge monthly.

I know I published the preview post at the beginning of June but today is the official launch of Creative Writing Monthly. For all of those who posted to the preview, I will ensure your stories are included in the inaugural wrap-up on the first Greg’s Blog Sunday Digest of August. Feel free to repost your link here if you want but know it is not necessary. Thank you for participating.

July 2023 Challenge Prompt:

Write a story about a new beginning, fresh start or new challenge.

Does the protagonist face the new situation head-on, crumble under pressure, or revert to old habits? How does the journey change them and affect those around them? Let the prompt be your guide.

I look forward to reading what you conjure up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.

Upcoming Challenges

Month	Topic
August	Write a story about summer camp, a wilderness vacation or a day in the great outdoors.
September	Write a fictional story based on a real life moment, event or memory from your days in grade school memory.

Rules and Guidelines

• Using the monthly prompt craft a work of fiction using between 750 – 1500 words
• This is meant to be an exercise in fiction however unless stated in the prompt there are no constraints to the style of writing employed. I suspect most entries will be prose, however, if you can write a 1500-word prose-style poem, go for it.
• When posting to your blog please add a pingback (link) to the Creative Writing Monthly challenge post and include the tags #gbcwm and #gmgblog in your post.
• Tell the world. It would be greatly appreciated if you shared the Creative Writing Monthly challenge post on your blog and social media accounts.
• Post submitted to the Creative Writing Monthly challenge may be included in a round-up post, Greg’s Blog Sunday Digest and may appear on the CWM Podcast currently in development. It is understood that all written works remain the property of the author.

Please reach out if you have questions or feedback about this challenge or any of the content presented on Greg’s Blog.

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