VSS365 Week 1

I started doing these weekly collections of my VSS365 (very short stories every day) prompts last year after doing them every day for literally MONTHS and then quickly fell off the wagon and stopped writing them… mybad.

Now that it’s the start of a brand new year, I’m going to start posting them again and am aiming to be able to brag at the end of the year that I posted the full 52 weeks!

I’m making it easier on myself this year by adding my daily prompts to a gdoc straight away and clearly labelling them with the day and date. So organised, I know. But last year one of my huge downfalls was that I decided to post collections halfway through the year and then I had a massive backlog of prompts to try and trawl through. It was a whole mission, honestly. I won’t be making that mistake again!

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s Week 1:

Day 1. Jan 1st. 
She stopped dead, spotting him, a bitter cold sweeping through her body and raising gooseflesh. A torrent of names flooded her mind. #Charlatan. Bastard. But none could find her mouth to escape and instead settled in her hand which she used to burn a brand into his cheek.

Day 2 Jan 2nd 
“If your plan is to #obfuscate matters then you’re going to be disappointed.” She pushed her chair back & rose from the table leaving the rest of the shadow council to watch her go. She’d no doubt just painted a target on her back, but any attack would be their undoing.

Day 3 Jan 3rd 
Cursed to live as a #unicorn, he was unsure how he had returned to human form. Something was wrong. An arrow whistled past his shoulder and he bolted, twigs and vines pulling at his body, casting red lines against glistening skin as he wished for four legs once more.

Day 4 Jan 4th
As she grew ever closer to her eighteenth birthday all eyes were on her. By now she should’ve shown some hint of #latent powers but she hadn’t. Her parents were worried, she saw it even though they tried to hide it. Were they ashamed? Mortified by the dud in their midst.

Day 5 Jan 5th 
His back ached as he shovelled. This was the worst part of his job, having to #disinter those that had been laid to rest, to disturb them from their eternal  slumber. But it was essential for his rituals and damnit if his succulents didn’t grow better in grave dirt.

Day 6 Jan 6th
A tiny #yip emanated from beneath the tree and Thomas looked up at Anthony suspiciously. 
“What was that?” He asked. 
“I hicoughed?” Anthony lied. 
“I didn’t know you could throw your voice like that.” 
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.” 
“Oh I’ll bet.”

Day 7 Jan 7th
The case opened with a click and he ran his finger across the vials. The name #obviate lined up on each as they jangled together like windchimes. Which emotion should he dull today? Perhaps the bone aching coldness of grief? Plucking the vial free, he loaded the syringe.

Interested in taking part in VSS365? It’s super easy, just look out for the day’s prompt and either share something from your WIP or something original (I tend to do mostly originals inspired on the spot by the prompt). There’s no start or end date. No limit. You can dip in and out as you like.

The current host is @rozlevens on Twitter and it changes monthly. If you ever lose the host in the abundance of prompts, just ask any of the participants and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.