Welcome to the longest day of the year, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, or the shortest day of the year if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the summer solstice, the first official day of summer! What a great day to submit a story to the Summer 2021 Young Writers Contest. Get your story read by people all over the world and have the chance to win prizes.

The challenge of Muse on Monday is to write a short story and use the prompt below. If you’re 18 years old or younger, you can submit your story using this link for a chance to have it published next Monday when the new prompt comes out. You just need to submit it before 12:00pm EST next Sunday.

If you have an idea for a prompt for a future week, please send it to me at greenwalledtreehouse@gmail.com! It can be in this form or anything else.

Story Prompt: June 21, 2021

SETTING: any

CHARACTERS: a cashier in a music store

CONFLICT: any

GENRE: any

TONE: light

OTHER ELEMENTS: coffee, an airplane

And now, a story based on last week’s prompt, based on this first line of the story:

First Line: I did a lot of things yesterday, but I forgot to…

The Mistake That Didn’t Change my Life

I did a lot of things yesterday, but I forgot to check my email. If only I had even glanced at it, I would have seen the subject line of that special email: YOU MAY BE WINNER, CLICKE HERE IN NEXT 4 HORS.

I could only assume it meant 4 hours. I had gotten the email at 8:30am so at 12:30, as I was eating lunch, happily unaware, the offer of a lifetime expired. It must have been good since they were so excited to get it to me, they did not even have time to spellcheck.

I thought about clicking on the link in the email to see if it was still possible but by this time, over a day had passed. There was no way it was still valid. Sadly, I deleted the email, but I resolved to never forget to check my email again. If you’re reading this, prizeforyou45928@casino.ru, please don’t forget about me. I’ll be ready next time.

Happy writing and have a wonderful week! Come back next Monday for another story prompt.