Good morning, Prosers!

It’s week 16 of the Prose Challenge of the Week, and another prompt is on its way to get you scribbling.

Last week’s challenge was in partnership with The Micropoetry Society, and you guys did not disappoint. Within 24 hours we had 85 entries, our highest entrant rate in one day, ever. We were truly stoked to see so many of you entering. You guys rock!

Let’s take a look at this week’s challenge before announcing the winner and runner-up of that challenge:

Prose Challenge of the Week #16: Write your eulogy in no more than 50 words. The winner will be chosen based on a number of criteria, this includes: fire, form, and creative edge. Number of reads, bookmarks, and shares will also be taken into consideration. The winner will receive $100, When sharing to Twitter, please use the hashtag #ProseChallenge

We want to see this challenge bigger than any other challenge before, so please, get those fingers tapping and get entering now!

On to the winner and runner-up of last week's challenge where we asked you to write a Micropoem using the word distort as your inspire. We have read all of the entries, along with liaising with Luke from The Micropoetry Society, and the results are as follows. The runner up, and the recipient of $25 is @Jordamalliecat, with "Drowning," congratulations to you! Finally, the winner of our first prize of $100, is @EJSaydah with "The Violent Listener." Congratulations to you. We will be in touch with both of you shortly to organize transfer of funds!

So, everyone, let’s see how many entries we can muster this week. Please share our challenge with your social media networks, we’d love to have this challenge see the most entries ever!

Until next time, Prosers, have a great week!

Prose. 

Constructive criticism is great

And often very welcome. Especially on posts where I state "feedback welcome."

I often make mistakes and notice after posting so I go back and edit. Sometimes these mistakes are done on purpose.

I write poetry, I write stories and I'll join in with some of the one liners.

My poetry can sometimes be obscure, lines you don't understand, metaphors that mean something to me but not you. They range on topics but in the end I wrote them, not you.

My stories can be a range of genres and not to everyone's liking.

Little challenges I enter are just for fun and the titles generally reflect that.

So telling me my sentance doesn't quite make sense, a word is missing here or I used the wrong your there, can be constructive and sometimes what I want.

However; going through lots of my writing and telling me you don't like my lines, to change my titles, that you don't understand why I put something in as that's not something you've ever thought of, that you don't like the way it's written. That's not constructive, that's just being a bit of a dick.

And then I remembered this wonderful block button which I was hoping never to use on here but, alas, I have.

In real life and getting published, or on my university essays, at work or by people for just being me. Criticism is dealt with easily and in a lot of those cases is often expected. Its often also wanted and needed in some of those cases for me to improve my work.

But on something like this I would have expected constructive or nothing. If I don't like something someone has written I just scroll on by. We all have different tatses so of course we're not going to please everyone.

There is a thin line between constructive criticism and just being a bit of a dick.

Hi, Prosers!

Around a month ago, we crowned our very first Proser of the Month, @rh, as a way to celebrate the talents and contributions of the community.

Now it is time to announce the next Proser of the Month. 

This person has been active on Prose for over a year now, and joined as one of our youngest members. She has grown so much over the course of her stay here and it has been an absolute pleasure to watch. Not only does she write so beautifully, but we have seen her support so many of her fellow peers here.

Your Proser of the Month this month is @Lynn! Congratulations, Lynn, this is absolutely deserved.

What does this even mean? Well, firstly, it gives you bragging rights. It also gives you a beautiful PDF version of our favourite piece of yours, voted by the team. We will send you this via email. Print it, frame it, hang it. It’s yours to do with what you will. The piece that we have chosen to showcase is “pages within pages.”

Across our social media each week we will be sharing your profile and prose to our followers. We believe that it’s important to show the world what talent you have, the journey you have been on, and the growth that you have made as a writer.

Karen, our super talented designer, has made a video of your piece, which is available to watch now on our YouTube channel. (We will embed the link in this piece.) We will share this across our social media channels, and we hope that all Prosers will too! A copy of this video will be emailed to you, also.

We couldn’t be more proud to have you as a part of the community, a community that we know will join in with congratulating you on this achievement. Thank you for sticking around, thank you for being an integral part of Prose.

Until next time, Prosers, keep doing what you do. Write.

Prose.

How much I used to detest poetry.

Superfluous words on a page,

roundabout ways of saying nothing,

word vomit with excessive rhyming.

Prose opened the door which showed me

poetry in its true form.

Free, elegant lines of raw emotion.

No rules, just hidden thoughts.

The English language used in the

most powerful way possible.

The words speak, dance, tremble.

They awaken

They arouse.

They evoke.

Prose stirs something inside that

you don't know exists.

Delicate feelings, hard determination,

wavering resolve, scandalous love.

A vehement love for our mother tongue,

a fervent gratitude for the gift of language,

and a propensity to let it all spill on the pages,

such is the power of Prose.