September Size Scribbles 2024

Announcing the second annual September Kinky Scribbles writing challenge!

Last year I decided to run an informal size kink writing challenge for myself and anyone in the community interested in participating. It was a blast! Together, twelve participants worked for a cumulative 24.5 hours to write 15 different stories, growing our total collective output to a massive 28,487 words. Read last year’s stories here!

The strategy of a Kinky Scribble is to produce creative content in a short amount of time, give it minimal edits, and then release it into the wild for others to enjoy.

Think of a Kinky Scribble as the writing equivalent of a quick pencil sketch. You could turn it into an oil painting with a lot of time and effort, or you can have fun sketching it, sharing it, and then move onto your next project.

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Parameters

The goal of the challenge is to write one or more stories within the month of September, using the Kinky Scribble format:

must be at least 500 words long, no max limit
can be flash fiction, a vignette, or prose poetry
can be NSFW or SFW
write it quickly
give it minimal edits
add content tags, esp. the most important Top 16 Tags
share it with the world within 24 hours
(optional) email me the link to your story to include in my Oct 1 blog post*

You can focus on writing one, two, ten, or try for as many as you can make before September 30! There’s no story limit and no upper wordcount limit.

Share your story wherever you usually post your work, and if possible include the hashtag #SeptKinkyScribble.

Common places size kink writers publish are their own websites, DeviantArt, Tumblr, Cohost, Giantess World, Giantess City, Coiled Fist, Daddy’s Dollhouse, Archive of Our Own (AO3), Literotica, FanFiction.net, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, in a long Twitter/Mastodon/BlueSky thread, or, as a last resort, a Google Doc with open viewing permissions and a link shared to social media. Remember that private forums like Giantess City and Daddy’s Dollhouse aren’t fully public. Be careful to check a platform’s terms of service about X-rated content and how they might legally or illegally take user’s work to train generative AI software.

At the end of the challenge, my plan is to make a blog post and a list of links to stories for people who participated. Email me the link to your story if you want to be included. Let’s see how much we can create in the next month!

*Important: this is not a contest and I have some hard limits due to past trauma, so I will not be reading all the stories. In my blog post celebrating our work at the end of the month, I will only include links to public stories, and stories that offer content tags. For accessibility and consent, if your stories include themes from the Top 16 Content Tags and you do not tag them, I will not share those until you add tags at the start of the story. I reserve the right to not feature a story for any reason.

What can I write about?

Stories can be SFW or NSFW. It can have lots of sex or no sex, comfy cuddles or dark themes, or something you find erotic or adorable or both or neither. You can write a simple vignette—a brief scene without a full plot—but if you have a plot arc in mind, then by all means go ahead!

I recommend finding an idea that excites you mentally, emotionally, or physically. It’s easier to launch into a scribble that makes you curious. What’s your personal favorite theme in size kink erotica? What’s a moment you love in a movie that you wish had size difference? What’s the fantasy you wish you saw more often? Can you feature that fantasy in two different ways in two different scribbles?

Sometimes I start with a small speck of a concept (a first kiss with a tiny, or how cold weather would affect size interactions) and it stays simple. Sometimes a more complex story reveals itself as I write (whoops, it’s an orgy now!) and I end up in a mad frenzy trying to keep the story to a reasonable length (if she’s so tiny, why is her story 4100 words).

You won’t have time or space to tackle complex topics in-depth, so it can help to focus on a single powerful moment. Instead of trying to write an entire wedding, try writing the scene where the vows are interrupted by someone outgrowing the building. Instead of offering the full worldbuilding download of how your growth serum / shrinking potion works and all its limitations, just show us that it works and that it has a limitation, and your readers will fill in the rest. What is the most intense and impactful moment of the larger story? Zoom in on that.

It can feel thrilling to try and write something quickly, especially when you give yourself permission to let it be messy and imperfect. That’s one reason I often like to share the length of time I spent writing and editing, because nobody reasonable would expect a masterpiece when it’s written in fifteen minutes or two hours. (And if they do, then they are not my audience.) You do not need to explain how long it took you, unless that is a positive strategy for you, too.

A Success Story: Glamorous Debt

A cool success story: last year, @BijouL33 took part by writing the scribble “Glamourous Debt,” which came to a fantastic 2354 words in 1.5 hours. She messaged me to make sure I saw her tweet and to share the wonderful news:

The wonderful size writing challenge you curated last year has yielded more fantastic and creative size work! A couple found the piece that I wrote for that challenge and liked it so much they wanted to record an audio version of the story (complete with sound design and everything!) I think it’s such a wonderful thing and I’m forever grateful that your challenge encouraged me to get out of my writing funk with a low stakes, welcoming atmosphere ❤️

Check out the 15-minute performance with sound design and voice acting here on the AudiosGoneWild subreddit. They asked Lee’s permission first, of course. I love how they tagged the story, and they even included a voice-only version for those with audio-processing issues and misophonia, like me! If you don’t have access to Reddit, you can listen to the main audio performance directly here, and the voice-only file here.

One of my hopes for this challenge is to see more creative sizey work in the world, so I am thrilled that this happened! It feels like such a wonderful example of what can happen when we share our creativity.

You never know who out there will be inspired by your ideas!

My Goals for This Year

My own personal goals: Last year I aimed for three Kinky Scribbles because I knew it would be a stretch. This year has been a bit rough and my September is going to be very full, so I am granting myself some grace.

My personal goal for this challenge is to write and publish at least one Kinky Scribble. My stretch goal will be to try writing a fanfiction for a sexy queer romance I read lately. But if I can’t make that happen, at least one scribble of any topic will be a win for me, personally.

My Tips for Kinky Scribbles

These are the tips I will personally offer for this particular challenge. Since we’re doing these quickly and aiming for a messy scribble, there are strategies that can help us do that.

Much of this comes from other peoples’ wisdom I’ve absorbed over the years, though I can’t recall sources. A lot of this comes from my own self-talk while writing!

try ideas that excite you, not what you think you “should” write
focus on a single powerful moment
don’t explain worldbuilding, just show it happening
less plot, more vignette
zoom in on sensory details
ask your inner editor to cut you some slack, just for now
lean into curiosity
playfulness, instead of perfection
let it be messy, like an artist’s sketch
all it needs to do is exist
afraid it won’t be good enough? stay afraid but do it anyway
remember you’ll be in good (& imperfect) company!

https://www.tumblr.com/goddammitstacey/169791420103/an-inspiration-to-us-all

Carrie Fisher’s full quote:

“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

(Took me a hot minute to track down where Fisher originally said this. It was in an interview with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on April 21, 2013. She was asked “What advice do you give people who are struggling with mental illness and are afraid to pursue their dreams?” So. Like. Me. She was talking about me. And maybe you? And maybe anyone who’s worried about not being good enough, which seems like most people for most of human history.)

Other Tips on Flash Fiction, Vignettes, and More

Strictly speaking, I am defining a Kinky Scribble as a specific kind of low-stakes, quickly-written flash fiction, vignette, or prose poem. It can be whatever you want or need it to be.

“Flash fiction” is technically its own subgenre of 1000 words or less, with a complete plot and a surprise at the end. A vignette usually explores a strong emotion or memory and does not have a specific length, plot, or have any need for a surprise at the end. A prose poem is even more loosely defined as a poem without standard line breaks, which looks like prose but reads like a poem.

There are plenty of tips on flash fiction from a variety of sources. You do NOT need to explore these resources or follow their rules. Plenty of people have different definitions of flash fiction and different goals for the quality of their stories. Some kinds of flash fiction are called micro-fiction, sudden fiction, postcard fiction, and short short story.

I’m offering other peoples’ definitions and tips because someone asked for them, but keep in mind, this particular Kinky Scribble challenge is meant to help people lower the stakes and have fun.

Some ideas from the interwebs to go more in-depth:

- Flash Fiction 101 – an excellent short article from MasterClass in 2022 that offers tips like using strong imagery, sticking to one moment and focusing on just one or two characters.
- 5 Tips on Writing a Vignette – another great article from MasterClass that offers tips like “don’t conform” to a traditional plot structure, use visual language, appeal to the senses, zoom in for a microscopic view, and “go big, then edit.”
- The Poet’s Revolt: A Brief Guide to the Prose Poem – from DIY MFA, an article with some great quirky definitions and examples of prose poems, which it calls “a small justified block of text wherein ‘weird shit happens'”
- Flash Fiction Online – a free online magazine specializing in high quality flash fiction stories – see their 2015 article “Thirteen Tips for Writing Flash Fiction” for their submission tips and, I kid you not, a fantasy story in their August 2024 issue called “In the Path of the Giantess” by Sarah Jackson (CW threat of village destruction)
- SmokeLong Quarterly – another free online magazine specializing in high quality flash fiction stories – their annual competition “The Grand Micro Contest” aka “The Mikey” does not in fact have anything to do with “micros” as the size community defines them, but if you enjoy flash fiction it’s something to explore
- Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast – a weekly podcast with mostly SFF short stories under 10 minutes each, with no descriptions or content warnings.

Why take this challenge?

My goal with this challenge is to help bring more sizey writing into the world, and to help myself build confidence and earn a little dopamine to remind me how much fun writing can be.

For myself, I want to pick my momentum back up and start sharing things again. I feel like the happy brain chemicals of this can help fuel me in my longer projects where I want to give the work more polish, but often run out of steam.

The first year I launched this challenge, I had been thinking about this tweet from sex writer Kate Sloan, author of 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do:

A lesson I learn over and over again, in every type of writing I’ve ever done, is:

Posting/sharing the thing quickly is good for dopamine & building confidence

Editing/honing the thing for days/weeks before posting it is good for making art you are deeply, enduringly proud of

— Kate Sloan (she/her) (@Girly_Juice) June 23, 2023

Most of my long work that I am deeply, enduringly proud of began as kinky scribbles. When the time comes to share, I sometimes realize that the potential I saw in the story feels too delicious to pass by for a little dopamine. Sometimes I feel frustrated with myself, but I try and let go of my narrative that “I’m failing at Kinky Scribbles” and focus on the fact I discovered a project that really speaks to me. I don’t regret transforming those into longer pieces and devoting more time to them. It’s okay to change your goals for a project once you can see the shape of it more clearly!

I’m also proud of the stories I kept as kinky scribbles, proud of creating them and releasing them, and especially proud of being playful and leaning into my love of writing.

In short, I’m trying to lean into the Andy Warhol philosophy:

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Compassion & calibrating expectations

Last year, this event was harder than I thought it would be, because reasons, and after 23 days feeling completely frozen, I seriously considered bowing out of my own community writing challenge. Controversial opinion here—it would have been okay if I had.

Sometimes these things move in cycles. Sometimes creativity stays out of reach for a long time, and that’s especially true for writing erotica with that added dimension of sexuality. If you’ve never heard of the Dual Control Model of sexuality (I have a short thread on it here) I’d also suggest there’s a similar model for creativity.

Sometimes no matter how much we want to be creative, there’s a lot of stuff weighing down our minds and bodies, and we have to take care of those things—and ourselves—before we’re able to explore and go the speed we’d prefer.

My partner pseudo_size and I have talked at length about our different writing styles, and last year she pointed out that the increased time pressure of a Kinky Scribble can actually raise stakes that won’t work for everyone.

For me, the deadline helps me overcome my desire for perfection because the ridiculous time frame forces me to give up my desire to make it The Best Story I Can Write™. I put up with high stakes in timing so that I can benefit from the low stakes of quality.

On the other hand, a lot of people might need a completely different structure. Writing something with a long (or nonexistent) deadline allows for flexibility that’s super important to folks with mental or physical health issues, people caring for kids or older family members, or those with demanding jobs or other responsibilities.

Flexibility like this, low stakes in timing, is something that was vital for pseudo as they wrote and edited their phenomenal erotic novel, Eve’s Boutique, now available for sale in multiple eBook formats and being released a chapter at a time on their blog!

I’ve needed that kind of flexibility and grace for a lot of projects, too, like my lesbian love story Dare You Not to Grow, which came to 14,000 words in six chapters and took me 11 months. In situations where you care a lot about the outcome, it’s okay to go slow. Low stakes in timing made it possible for pseudo and I to put high stakes into quality.

Sometimes you want to take your time with art to makes something you are deeply, enduringly proud of. Sometimes you want a fun mad dash to some dopamine. Different creative projects require different tools. Use whatever feels best for you and your story!

If you can join us for this challenge, I am thrilled to have you. If you need to re-calibrate and decide this challenge isn’t for you right now, that’s okay too. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’m proud of us all for trying, and for everything we create!

Share the challenge with your followers

Here’s some text to copy/paste into a social media post, if it feels good to announce your participation. (It’s also totally okay to announce it after you’ve participated—whatever works best for you and your motivation.)

I’m taking the #SeptKinkyScribble Challenge! Share sizey stories of 500+ words w/ the #KinkyScribble format: write it quickly, give it minimal edits, add tags, and share it with the world within 24 hrs. In Oct @mightytinygiant will feature participants on her blog. Wish me luck!

To quote the outro of the Writing Excuses podcast: okay, you’re out of excuses, now go write!

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