Allow Me to Introduce, Pentober!

100 Word Story Collaborations & 100+ 100 Word Stories Written

Dear Reader,

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With Fall under way and the Summer weather hopefully long behind us, the time has come to talk about a new month with an all new idea for prompts! Yes, in September we’ll be going through another suit in the Literary Tarot deck, but I want to take a quick peek behind the curtain at October because this is an idea nearly ten years in the making! It started from Inktober. If you’re not familiar, it was created by Jake Parker in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. And ever since, I’ve wanted to do the same for myself to develop positive writing habits.

So, how will this go? As always, for myself, I’ll be writing one 100 Word Story every day in October. You can write any length you’d like using the word prompts, but I suggest keeping it short when you see the Pentober Rules:

1. Write a story using a pen/pencil & paper

2. Absolutely no typing on a computer or digital device allowed!

3. Share it.*

4. Repeat.

*Take a picture of (or scan) your story and post it to social media, your Substack, or Substack Notes. How or where you share it is less important as the act of handwriting a story in the first place.

PEN/PENCIL & PAPER? REALLY?!

What makes this challenge great is not just writing a story, but taking the act of writing all the way back to before typewriters and just keeping it basic. Cross-outs and all! To mark this special month of Pentober I’m going to write all of my stories in a Jonathan Adler journal. I haven’t devised a plan for calculating 100 words by hand besides good old fashioned counting but I’m excited to get back to the basics and I hope you join me! If you do, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section and share a picture of your journal and writing implement as well!

BUY ME!

THE PENTOBER [OCTOBER] LIST

Because you’re subscribed I’m not going to make you wait! Now, no cheating! Try to wait till October 1st before you start going off to write all 31 stories! The point of sharing the list this early is just to get your brain percolating and hopefully build some hype around Pentober ahead of time. Feel free to share the list around social media so anyone who may want to join us can sign-up:

JOIN ME SEPTEMBER 24 - SEPTEMBER 30 FOR A PRACTICE RUN

That’s right! I’m not going to send you into October without some examples of what Pentober is all about!

Starting September 24th I will share via email (and on Substack Notes) exactly how I intend on using my notebook and pen to write my stories, count the words, and share the story on social media.

And to keep it exactly the same as October, here are 7 words I’ll be using the last week of September as prompts:

A QUICK POLL

I’ve seen this done by a few people and, in truth, I did this a couple years ago with my Friday Fiction 2.0 Podcast. And I’m wondering if you all would be even slightly interested in my bringing it back, starting with October, and possibly going back into the Archives as well with my 100 Word Stories:

Keep in mind because each recording would likely be under 30 seconds I am not likely to do any voice editing or anything really fancy and I’m not by any means on the level of a voice artist like LeVar Burton who does some amazing dramatic readings on his podcast and I highly recommend listening to him if you aren’t already! But if it’s something you’d like to hear, let me know in the poll and like I said, I’ll introduce it in October alongside Pentober! And who knows, maybe this will be my entry into TikTok and I’ll do some vertical video recording of me reading the story as well? 🤔

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THE SHORT SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Every year I try to enter at least one writing competition. I’m building a list of loses and rejections. Unfortunately, 2022 I skipped because I had a lot of family changes that happened. I’d like to get back to it in 2023 with the Writer’s Digest competition. The Early Deadline is November 15th with an entry fee of $30 and I’d like your help to raise the funds. Consider becoming a paid subscriber. If I get 10 subscribers to upgrade to paid in September/October I would net just enough to afford the entry fee by November 15th. If you do your part to help, I promise to do mine and write the best 1500 word story I’ve ever written!

If you want to learn more about the contest and join me in submitting something this year, check out the page here.

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A 100 WORD STORY CALL FOR COLLABORATIONS

There are so many of you who showed interest in writing these 100 word stories that I invited anyone who wanted to join me to collaborate and there have been 7 so far with the 8th coming either today or later this weekend. If you’re wondering where you can read them, they are exclusive to my Substack Notes.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

I will send you 50 words to start and you will conclude the story with your 50 words. Trust me when I tell you, no matter how or where I think the collaborator will take the story, it is always a surprise, which is why I enjoy doing them so much.

I am putting out a call for anyone else who may want to collaborate with me. Just let me know by sending me an email: ericadrayton@substack.com and put “100 Word Collaboration” in the Subject Line. I may need a day or two to get back to you but I promise I will. I only do these once a week so keep that in mind. Also, if we’ve collaborated before, we can totally do it again so go ahead and reach out if you want!

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WORTH THE WATCH

Ali Abdaal is a leading leader in productivity and I’ve been watching his videos religiously for the last 5+ years, at least. He has a new book coming out this Winter (Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You), but here is a great video where he discusses some great tips about being better at productivity.

A MESSAGE FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS

EXCLUSIVE ACCESS UNLOCKED - I’ve recently resurfaced all of my “long fiction” pieces and placed them all behind a paywall. I will have new flash fiction and long form fiction stories of up to 2.5k words coming very soon as a part of my Curio Fiction collection of stories coming in 2024. But for now, please enjoy exclusive access to my longer fiction by clicking HERE.