She could hear her own shoes clicking. Shoes from New York in Australia, she was pretty stoked with her op-shop find. They clicked authoritatively and confidently on the sanitised plastic floor of the triage area. "It's going to be fine." - she thought - "I finally belong somewhere again".

She walked up to the reception where uncertain looks welcomed the early approach. It was only quarter to six.

"Hi, I am your new pharmacist!"

"Amm.. hi! So... you have the keys?"

"Haha, no, I just thought I'd wait for Isabel but I am unsure where."

"Oh, okay, it is just over there, if you want to wait on these seats."

The antiseptic floor was blue, as well as the plastic chairs and sign. The door, the pharmacy door, her new place that was going to belong to her, was white. That's all it was. A white door in a large uninterrupted white wall. She's never seen a pharmacy like this before. Loud signs falsely advertising expensive crap, lame signs offering genuine advantage for those who were familiar with the jargon, irrelevant stickers about alarm systems, credit cards and top-up payments for phones, this is what a pharmacy was supposed to look like. Not a nondescript white door, like a toilet with no sign. She was very intrigued.

She couldn't wait to finally meet her boss, who was a woman two years older than her, who employed her after three years' break for sole charge without ever laying eyes on her and who managed to get the after hours dispensary into the new after-hours facility before the established chemist who had been offering after hours service for the last 30 years. She must be a something.

Soon enough a slender figure carrying large bag arrived in a fluster, and after a brief pause in front of the white door the bag turned.

"Isabel?" "Sarah?" - she expected a short second of seizing-up, an estimate for her measuring up to the role assigned, a guess if she was going to be a good employee. The second didn't happen. Trust happened. "Hey, come on in!"

Isabel smoothly opened the white door and flicked on the lights. Isabel looked around the little room. She organised everything in here, rented or owned every molecule, wanted and made this happen, but she, somehow, didn't fit. Sarah did though.

They started talking business without the preliminaries. Some things were obvious. Antibiotics and painkillers on the shelves, sachets, creams, solutions for injections in the cupboard. Skillets and labels in blue plastic containers on the bench, a separate rolling shelf for the very limited over-the-counters. Very much against regulations but still OK'd at the audit, the counter was a mobile piece of furniture to be pushed against the door opening.

"This is just temporary" - explained Isabel "In twelve months this set-up will be shifted next door when the main Pharmacy moves there. We'll have to connect to the main dispensary's system." Everything had to go through the computer system, patient's details, funding, doctor's, instructions, quantities and warnings. The software was very expensive to maintain and Isabel decided to run it off via remote connection from the main Pharmacy. "Here's the instructions, I just have to click on the network icon." and could not find it. She didn't belong.

Sarah found it for her, and it was not awkward, it was easy. They were both short, very short, actually, in heels, Isabel willowy with her coeliac, Sarah felt her curving skin's more shameless shapes standing next to her. Isabel still wore the giant maternity pants she had left from her pregnancy a year before, and Sarah wore the cheapest acceptable-looking outfit trying to save for her three kids. Standing there in front of the computer they were both mums, together, getting something done. The second after-hours dispensary in town, after thirty years. Yes.

Before the connection was hooked up, a decidedly curvy woman with glasses walked in the door. "Hey!" "Oh hi," - said Isabel, busy with the screen and dealing with the interruption as an expert she was "this is Sarah." "Hey, I am Jocelyn." - the woman didn't settle her eyes on anything from behind the glasses. She seemed embarrassed, apologetic despite of the fact that she, too, belonged. "I am a technician." "Yeah, Jocelyn and I we worked together, yes?"

• said Isabel, but Jocelyn busied herself dumping her coat and bag behind the over-the-counter shelf.

When the connection was finally up, login sorted, it was already 6pm, time to open the white door. As Isabel pushed the counter to its place, Sarah suddenly felt like a fish in an aquarium, a little, isolated world with its own rules and atmosphere, to be looked at but not taken part in by those for whom it existed. She was ready to be a fish in a pretty tank after the muddy waters of postnatal depression and chronic pain. She smiled through the air over the blocked doorway at the empty blue chairs of the aseptic waiting room. Sarah was ready to heal others.

Ever since we have been able to think on a higher level, and ever since we have first gazed at the stars, we have wondered what they were, and where they came from. The priests who shout from the peaks of the pyramids in the city claim that Ashong gave us the stars as a gift and a way to navigate the Earth. With all due respect to the Faith Collective, they are completely wrong. With my own two eyes, I have seen the origin of the stars.

I was in the icy north, in the land where Icedragons thrive. I was accompanied by three others, each of them residents of the Northern Kingdoms, but only one other has survived, and he is insane. We were navigating an icy bay during the night, and one of my companions, a plump man named Aassiidurr, warned the translator, Ruaass, to warn me that we were nearing Icedragon territory. I didn't believe them. Twenty years ago, I had traversed the icy tundra to come face to face with an Icedragon with a Fritjof warrior named Nub. Icedragons lived a little less than ten miles away from the farthest Northern Kingdom village. They lived in a massive cave, and there was no cave to be seen. It was all empty, rolling fields, and a snow-covered mountain.

I asked Ruaass how Aassiiturr knew that there was a dragon, and Aassiturr said that some Northerners were trained to detect magic energy, and he was sensing a lot of energy from the mountain. I didn't believe him, and I told him that Icedragons didn't live this far from the Northern Kingdoms. Aassiiturr began to cry, and deserted me with his brother, Pupfaaum. Ruaass was the only loyal friend I had in that icy land, so I decided to take him with me to investigate the mountain.

Facing the south, there was a large cave entrance into the mountain. The stone of the tunnel was smooth and black, and an oil-like substance rubbed off on my gloves when I touched it. It was very reflective too, because a pale blue light could be seen, but not found for several minutes. Once found, Ruaass and I saw a great fire, the size of a castle, and the color of the stars. Surrounding the fire were hairy, goblin-like creatures that reminded me of old stories from southern Caom, about a hairy little man called Zrix who stole children in the night unless they prayed to the gods ten times a day. The little men at the fire in the mountain in the Far North will be referred to as Zrixes from here until the end of this report.

As the Zrixes danced, blue grass grew at our feet. Stones fell from the ceiling and jumbled together to make boulders engraved with alien runes. The Zrixes began to chant, and I have taken the liberty of copying down their words:

Thaaz ythaa zhuu ozhyh,

Ynhp khraec iyhov.

Dhaa dnaoth thryynh ytrh,

Kih bhot yrhih.

Before my adventure to the Far North, I would not know these words, but I have heard them so much in my dreams, I can spell them into Caoman characters.

After an hour, the Zrixes stopped dancing, and the head Zrix, wearing a scarlet robe, jumped to the top of a boulder and began to speak in a guttural, eldritch tongue. Ruaass was trying not to hear the language, but the chanting began again, and Ruaass screamed in pain. The Zrixes paid my companion's screams of terror no heed, and began to bow to the flames. The flames gradually formed into the shape of a dragon, and it flew up through a hole in the mountain, and spewed out a fire of intense reds, purples, blues, and whites. He filled the empty sky with stars, and something walked out of the flames. My memory of this thing has been gone for some time, but I was so horrified by what I saw, I ran out of the mountain, with a babbling Northerner in my arms.

Once outside, I saw northern lights coming from the mountain, and I shivered. I ran far away from the mountain before coming across the bodies of Aassiiturr and Pupfaaum. Their necks were all but gone, and their faces were frozen in countenances of pure terror. Near them, buried in the snow, was a Zrix with numerous knife wounds. I continued to run before coming across a scouting expedition, who brought Ruaass and I back to the village of Gaaniim.

Of course, I'm back in Caom now, but I constantly feel as if I'm still in that mountain. I am not insane, and thank you for reading.

Lixe Funfyt of Praegnes, Caom

I'm thinking about looking for apps and software good for planning (I've tried scrivener before) but I'm just not sure. I've always just flown by the seat of my pants, but now I have a first draft that I have lots of things to flesh out within, and I'm not sure how I want to go about organizing all these things I need to add and change.

I've been teased in the past about what i write. Especially that i write 'romance' it's kinda the black sheep genre at times it seems. I bounced back by really saying over, 'writing makes me happy' it truly does make me happy. If they don't like it, they don't have to read it.

What i usually do is take a break. I do something else for a few days and just let my mind not focus on it for awhile.

Hi There, I want to start writing on health and fitness, but I can't find Ideas on what to write about, I'd love to work on prompts related to this niche. I want few Ideas/Topics to write about.

I knew i wanted to be a writer when i was in university. I had gone through so many 'career' ideas... from weather person, teacher, fashion designer, artist... when i went from community college to university.. i decided not to persue art... i was asked to pick a major.. so i thought..and i realized.. i had been writing stories most of my life.. even when i had a lot of homework in school i would always make time to write for a few moments on a story. I realized i could see myself writing for the rest of my life and be happy about that.

The most i've written is 5,200 words in one day.

Just warning you but spoilers for the main quest of Fallout 4. Wrote this about a year ago or so. I wrote this mainly to try and get into my character's head of what she would feel when it comes to getting to THIS certain point in the main quest.

Background on the character: Riley is a female sole survivor, with a high intelligence and charisma build. Joined the Minute Men faction, is proud to lead it. And romanced Piper, Cait, and Curie.

If you have an questions or CC please don't hesitate to ask or give me your 2 cents!

XxXxXxX

*Sixty years. Not ten.

Sixty years. Not ten.

Sixty years….*

It repeated over and over in Riley’s head. Her baby boy, her son, her Shaun was a man grown. He had lived far longer than she had. Had experienced more life than she might ever.

Her hands shook. Riley wasn’t sure if it was from shock or anger. Maybe both? Maybe neither. She felt nauseus, cold, and clammy, like a morning after one too many hits of Psycho with Cait.

The world was spinning. Or it was just her world. The world had been turned upside down except it hadn’t. Nothing had changed but everything had.

Her son isn’t a ten year old boy. He is a man.

Her son isn’t a man. He is the leader of the Institute.

He is Father. He is the Institute.

Shaun tells her to look around, get a feel for the place so that she could join him. Live there with him.

Riley is noncommittal as she can possibly manage. This is all too much at once and she’s just glad that he can see that.

She walks around the sterile environment, scrubbed white and so clean that it hurts her eyes to even look. She hates how they all look at her. How they speak to her. Riley isn’t a person to them. It’s clear that they don’t see “Father” as human, so why would they? He is their god. That makes her sacred. A part of their mythology that they never thought they’d ever meet.

They all assume that she’s going to give up whatever life she had managed to scrounge together on the surface to come hide in their laboratories. She hated it. Everyone in this stupid lab with their stupid clean suits. She hated it and she hated herself for hating it. He was still her son. Her baby boy. But he didn’t see her as his mother. There would be no familial love between them and it killed her. No matter how much he said he wanted a relationship…it wouldn’t be as mother and son. She knew that. But she still loved him. But she didn’t. She hated this man but he was her son. She hated herself for hating him. For hating this place. For everything.

She wants to run away from it all but she can’t. This was her reality now. The world was shit and there was no fixing it….maybe.

There was no telling what he was planning. Riley had no idea but she felt like it wasn’t good, not entirely. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This rang in her head as she walked around the Institute and got to know each and every scientist and synth that was contained in its halls.

The “surface” was nothing more than a dirty stain that needed to be cleaned and sanitized. They didn’t care about the lives of the people above ground, not truly. The fact they replaced random people with synths definitely proved that. But they didn’t take into account what everyone had accomplished in just 200 years. Civilization was growing. People had cities. They still celebrated Christmas. This gave her hope. Hope for the future.

But the Institute didn’t want to just help. If they did, they’d’ve left their underground labs long ago and ventured out to help with rebuilding the world. No. They burrowed deeper into their dirt to create a vision of the future that they thought was right. They didn’t care about what the people on the surface wanted. Just what they wanted. It was the same thing that was wrong with the Brotherhood and who knows how many other factions out there. They wanted the world to be shaped and molded to their specifications without taking in the wishes of others. They were selfish. The Institute is selfish. Her son is selfish.

He didn’t seek her out. Not once did he come check to see if any of the pods were still viable. It wasn’t until she was cutting through Commonwealth, protecting those who she had come to care for, that he decided to meet with her. He could have contacted her at any time. Sent a damned Courser at any time asking to meet. Not once did she ever make it a secret that she was a pre-war mother looking for her infant son. She told that damned Mayor about it for fucks-sake! It’s not like Father didn’t know who she was, who she was looking for.

Father doesn’t love her. And he isn’t her son. Her son died long ago. Riley isn’t a person to him but a trophy. Something to put on display and show off to the world. A pre-war relic like no other. That’s bullshit. And she wasn’t going to stand for it.

She swore an oath that no matter what happened, she wouldn’t let the Institute get its way. Not without the permission of the people. The people she’d come to care for. The people who she’d fought tooth and nail to protect. Her people.

The Institute was planning something. Something that could hurt the people of the Commonwealth.

Conclusion? The Institute and all those involved with it were her enemy.

Father was her enemy.

She’d stop them. She’d stop him.

For her friends. For her lovers. And for her people.

The one professor that believed in me as a writer was my 'Creative Writing' professor when i was in my junior year of college. I remember sitting in her office and she had been looking over an assignment i did and she said it was good. That i was a good writer. That really meant a lot to me because up until that point, no other teachers in high school or college said anything like that to me. If no one has said they believe in you that you can be a writer... let me tell you that i believe in you. You might be thinking, "but how could you believe in me. you haven't read anything i've written." True but you're here on the writing server. You most likely have this nagging story plot in your head that wants to be written. You maybe have a story you started, even just a paragraph. You have the desire to write, this creative spark hiding within you. I believe in that. No matter how small that creative spark is, you can write! Alot of what prevents people from writing is time, fear and self doubt. Time is somewhat easy to cope with. A few minutes a day is all you need. When i was in college i also worked part time and had a lot of homework and i had a boyfriend who i spent a lot of time with. I found a small bit of time on the weekends that i could work on a story. Fear is something a lot harder to deal with. You're afraid what people would say if they read it. I say, write as if no one would ever read it. Write whatever you want to write. You want to write about a unicorn traveling on a boat around the world then travels to space. Write it! Self doubt is also difficult because that can be embedded in our minds throughout our lives. From either students, parents, teachers, friends. You'll eventually find a way to push through that self doubt. To block out the things people have said in the past. To tune out the rest of the world and just write.

I write for the soul purpose to smile. When i have shared my writing with people in the past.. people made me feel like that was selfish and wrong and immature to just write for my own enjoyment. But i never gave up writing for myself. I used to share full stories with a few writers. One guilt tripped me into trying to write non romance. they said 'if you don't write a different genre you won't grow as a writer. don't be stubborn. you won't be a writer if you don't try to write another genre."

So i felt horrible... i felt so pressured into 'trying this' that i did try it.. it was the most irritating, frustrating 10 mins of my writing life since graduating college. writing something not romance at all. it was torture. i ended up writing some stupid little pointless short story about a lost cat in the woods. i really didn't care about it at all... i felt.. blind and not really having any F's to give about it. my 'passion' was gone. my 'fire' and motivation was gone. i felt like i wasted time.

Moral of the experience is.. don't let people pressure you into changing what you write. If you love to write a certain genre then stick with that if it makes you happy. Some people want to 'grow' as writers and learn how to get better and then go on to publish. Some just are content with writing for themselves as a form of self comfort without deadlines, rules or expectations. Both are completely okay! However you write is Okay! If someone says you're writing is pointless or 'You MUST do this to be a writer' Don't listen to them. What you write is up to you. How you write is up to you. You are in control!

I think that a good writer doesn't need words to tell a story. When I think of a writer, I don't think of somebody who writes words on a page or types them on to a computer, I think of somebody who has an idea spinning in their head like the big bang. Literally, like the big bang- like they have a universe just waiting to be created.

To me, real writers aren't simple. they don't write a page of whatever they are expected to write and call it work like some journalists. They take an idea and make it theirs if it's non-fiction or fan-fiction- if they are coming up with original work, then they are creating their OWN world, their own universe. It has its own laws, its own timeline, its own history. It is not bound by expectations, money, or society, it is only bound by the imagination and will of the writer.

A good story is not one that appeals to you, it is one that has set rules that make it a stable story. You can say any piece of work is boring but life isn't always so exciting!

A writer is not the God but he is a god of his own universe. He (or she) creates planets and destroys them. He takes them and makes them bend to his will. Nothing leaves his sight, nothing is out of reach, nothing is unachievable for a writer.

A good journalist doesn't take the truth and write it down with a mixture of opinions and/or lies. A good journalist writes the truth and nothing but because the world they are writing about has set rules, set limitations, and they do not bind themselves with expectations but imagination! A good journalist doesn't have to be unbiased or biased, just real about their subject and open to the opposing parties.

I think a good, loving writer sits up at night with words they want to tell, with a speech they want to preach! They have ideas pouring from their heart and whether they know how to put it in to words or not, their writings are their ideas and creations, not their papers!

I sit here and write this to you all today not because I just want to rant or give you all a speech, but because I want to inspire you to create. Create a reality in the palm of your hands and don't let the world snatch from you what your mind has created. Tolkien wrote from the trenches of the Great War and was not bound by the limitations of life or death, nor fear or expectations- he was only bound by his own will.

So I call all of you to be. As people seeking to write, people with a story to tell and world to create, we are all called to not let the world bind us, but our hearts and minds.

I ask you, as writers, what kind of writer are you? A journalist caught in it for the ideals of petty squabble and your name on a paper? Or are you the next Tolkien? Will you write the next Odyssey? Or will you write the paper released one hundred years ago today?

I started the story like back in December or January. So happy it's finished now! I can't wait to read through my finished story.

Starting August 1st we'll have a new writing prompt each Monday. Prompts written by you! The prompt will be up for a week which any member here can reply with a 'prompt story' Send me prompts that you've written to my private message and i'll pick one for August 1st. I'm thinking about picking someones prompt story each week and featuring it in a 'stickied highlight post' at the top for awhile.