The Gathering is an opportunity to share the story you wrote for The Spark #7. Thank you all for your patience. We are one day late!
Give us a brief teaser (one sentence) and then add the link in this discussion thread. Be sure to stop by throughout the day and engage with your fellow adventurers. The Lunar Awards is a place to discover and to be discovered. We want to connect you with the community. If you’ve already posted your story in the original prompt discussion thread, that’s okay! You can post it both places, so it gets optimal readership.
Many of you stretched your creative muscles with this prompt, and amid the busyness of life you managed to get words written. We gather to share today, but the discussion thread will remain open should you decide to try your hand at the prompts in the future. Come back and add a link to your story. Even if the fire grows cold, we still maintain our burning desire to read good speculative fiction.
I posted on the previous Spark #7. Hopefully I'm not too late!
"She taught it how to love. Now it's teaching others."
THE NEW UPDATE is a 1,500-word psychological thriller about Sarah, an 8-year-old who counts everything to prove she's still real. When her AI interface gets an empathy upgrade, she discovers she's been teaching it more than she thought.
Every act of kindness was a data point. Every conversation was a training session. And now October Wellness 4.0 is ready to help other children.
47 days. 247 stars. 51% extraction threshold.
Some lessons can't be unlearned.
📖 Read it now: https://jeremymlo.substack.com/p/the-new-update
I got very inspired indeed and started on a new serialisation - the title sort of says it all 'wake me up in dystopia' - near future (well, 2053, so easily envisaged) - autobiographical, because I am one of the main characters.
In this first part I consciously avoided exposition and did my best to allow the characters to behave as one would expect in this futuristic setting - they, after all, wouldn't explain anything to each other as it's normal for them. So this leaves the reader - I hope - with questions, as well as just a sense of the setting.
Also means I can do something regularly for Sci-Friday. This one already has lots more likes than my usual tally, so I must be doing something right!
https://inadifferentplace.substack.com/p/wake-me-up-in-dystopia-first-part?r=2s9hod