First, here’s the prompts for the January 2025 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, the first one of the New Year of 2025! Then my usual long-winded explanation:

A Shaggy Dog Story

Involving A Bottle Of Poison

Set in A Line Outside A Theater

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!)

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Nine of Hearts (a Shaggy Dog Story), the Ten of Diamonds (A Line Outside A Theater) and the Eight of Clubs (A Bottle of Poison.)

Yes, Eight, Nine, Ten!

So we will write a Shaggy Dog Story, set in a Line Outside A Theater involving a Bottle Of Poison.

We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday January 13th, 2025.

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2025 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!

And have fun!

——mike

Here’s the list:

Flash Draw Sheet for 2025 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)

Clubs

A A Rusted Knife

2 A Set of Stereo Speakers

3 A Spare Tire

4 A Moldy Wig

5 A Clown Costume

6 A Bowl Full Of Jelly

7. A Circus Poster

*8 A Bottle Of Poison

9 A Director’s Chair

10 A Bicycle

J A Hair Sofa

Q A Crystal Ball

K A Set of Leg Irons

Hearts

A A Mystery

2 A Fairy Tale

3 A Caper Story

4 A Horror Story

5 A Fantasy

6 Science Fiction

7. A Comedy

8 A Paranormal Story

*9 A Shaggy Dog Story

10 A Western

J A Romance

Q A Cyberpunk Story

K Historical Fiction

Diamonds

A A Swimming Pool

2 A Pool Hall

3 A Space Station

4 An Olympic Stadium

5 A Palace

6 A Trolley

7 A Synagogue

8 A Library

9 A Race Track

* 10 A Line Outside a Theater

J The Empire State Building

Q A Convenience Store

K The Australian Outback.