Good morning, my faithful writing afficionados! Today is a new pointless foray into stupid stuff to do day to explore and examine your ideas, and I am excited for the prospects!

The aim of this exercise, and likely many to follow, is to grasp the subject matter firmly then run with it using every creative capability you possess! To quote:

What Is A Writing Prompt?

If you’re a fiction writer, you may want to consider using writing prompts to kick-start your creativity. A writing prompt is simply a topic around which you start jotting down ideas. The prompt could be a single word, a short phrase, a complete paragraph or even a picture, with the idea being to give you something to focus upon as you write. You may stick very closely to the original prompt or you may wander off at a tangent.

You may just come up with rough, disjointed notes or you may end up with something more polished and complete, a scene or even a complete story. The point is to simply start writing without being held back by any inhibitions or doubts.

Here are four good reasons for writing to prompts:

1. Sometimes it’s hard to start writing when faced with a blank page. Focusing on an unrelated prompt for a while helps get the creative juices flowing. If you write for just ten minutes on a prompt, you should then find it easier to return to the piece you intended to write. You may also find that if you stop trying to think so hard about what you wanted to write and switch you attention to the prompt instead, the words and ideas for your original piece start to come to you after all.

2. The things you write in response to a prompt may also end up as worthwhile material in their own right. The prompt may give you ideas from which a complete story grows or you may get fresh ideas for another piece you are already working on. It’s often surprising how much material you come up with once you start.

3. Writing to a prompt regularly helps to get you into the habit of writing. This can act as a sort of exercise regime, helping to build up your “muscles” so that you start to find it easier and easier to write for longer and longer.

4. Prompts can be a great way to get involved in a writing community. Sometimes writing groups offer a prompt for everyone to write about, with the intention being for everyone to come up with something they can then share. This can be a source of great encouragement, although knowing that others will read what you have written can also inhibit your creativity.

Today's prompt: The summer seemed to last forever.

You have the same ten minutes. Get to it, you lovely monsters.

Starting the count down.

It was a hot summer. No, it was the hot summer. The only one there ever will be.

It's been like that since Celestia permanently banned Luna and plunged the Moon on Saddle Arabia.

"Not liking bananas is a sign of evil infestation!" she said in her defense when Canterlot ponies confronted her about it.

Every day. No, the day, since the Sun never set, was sunny. Pegasi tried to counter it with clouds at first, but even that had ended when Celestia proclaimed cloud manipulation as unnatural and started banishing offending pegasi to a far away dungeons.

And now I was face to face with the princess.

"My advisers inform me that you want to familiarise yourself with my dungeons," she sighed.

"No, I just came to inform you that the word banana means pineapple in the language of Saddle Arabia."

"Oh, how I hate pineapples!" She waved her forehooves in the air.

"So did they, before you annihilated them."

"Oh, I see. My bad." She smiled with her teeth clenched.

3211181

That was five-star class, good sir. Now I gotta write my own.

Sunset Shimmer raised her head, drawing a breath to steady her levitation. She was sweating, but it was not only the hot weather that was around her; permeating just in the same way as humidity were her teacher’s expectations. Rather than nervousness there was excitement but in even this she had to quell to a suitable level, a mindset most conducive to magic. She placed the cart-sized wrecking ball on an above balcony in the garden, setting it down gently so it would not fall through. Celestia trusted her greatly, although it was often hard to fathom why. At any moment Sunset feared repercussion; a slap on the hoof or perhaps something worse. But, for now at least, she was enjoying the summer of her life.

Her training seemed to be lasting forever. She had no idea of its overall length or even specifically what it was for, but these were thoughts quietly brushed aside. It was the enjoying of all the little parts, gradually assembling a better whole, a better her, that was what pleased her. She basked in the sun and she rose with it every day. Celestia had told her recently how visibly brighter she had become. This could last forever. In fact, it would—there was no thinking otherwise. And even if the sun must set and the summer go, it would not be today.

This one is a bit of a mess. It's meant to be Sunset before EG, in a stage where she is uncertain if the good time (summer) under Celestia will continue. She's going from a 'rebel' to someone who she really wants to be and it's supposed to be sort of tragic that it never happened.

Totally unrelated - I just realised that "Applejack's Ample Assertions" sounds like I'm referring to her ass being somehow empowering.

Good. Good.

I'll take a crack at this one later today when I finish my damn bloody research paper. You want the results of the prompt simply added in as a comment?

Alrighty, here ya go. I got to say, I really enjoyed this prompt.

The summer seemed to last forever. Those were the words engraved upon the warm, jet-black stone. Behind it, lay a castle in ruins. The engraving looked more like hoof-writing, as if someone in desperation or boredom had chiseled it there, perhaps unknowing how permanent the words could be.
Twilight Sparkle sighed and drew her wings up above her to shield her eyes from the merciless sun. She was alone, and had been for quite some time. The others had left long ago, going north with Princess Luna and the rest of ponies of Equestria seeking relief from the unbearable heat.
But Twilight remained behind. Nothing her friends could say would change her mind.
“You won’t survive here for long,” Applejack had argued.
“I’m an Alicorn now, I’ll be fine,” retorted Twilight.
She closed her eyes momentarily as she let the memory passed. It seemed like so long ago. Perhaps because it was. Twilight had long forgotten how long she had remained among the ruins of Canterlot Castle. Judging by the lack of water, it couldn’t have been too long. Twilight was about to satisfy her curiosity about how long Alicorns can go without water. Even immortals can die of thirst, she feared.
Without opening her mouth, it was far too dry to do so safely, she stepped further in the castle to begin a new day’s search.
I have to find the library. It has to be here… somewhere, she thought.
She passed a broken stained glass window, but enough of it remained so she could tell what the image used to represent.
If only we had known… thought Twilight as she carefully stepped around a broken image of Princess Celestia.

3214681& 3213424:

That. Was. Incredible. I am left wanting SO much more from these exceptional ideas!

You... you truly make me happy.

Except now I'm afraid my offering will be shit. So thanks for that.

3232868 aww... Thank you! I try. I may pursue this idea further once I'm out of college for the summer.

3233370

You really should. It's exceptional.

PLEASE!?

3236154 Well, if Mother wants it written, I must obey. I'll plan it out and work on it starting tomorrow, as soon as my summer break begins officially.

3236248

... well, Mother isn't insisting so much as excited for the prospects, so there's no need to be too concerned.

Am I a bad pony?

3238793 Not at all. I need a good kick in the pants to get started on a story, otherwise music will distract me from improving my other craft.

3232868
Thanks a lot!
I looked long and hard to believe that comment was indeed in response to mine and it made me very glad to be able to make others feel less confident in their own offerings.
I probably won't expand on it, for reasons not entirely known. But thanks again for being interested!

3239972

I really enjoyed both stories equally, as they're quite different - as in unique, mm? They caught my interest and kept it held, which is commendable! I have a crappy attention span, eh.

You should be proud, because I AM jealous. You will pay dearly.

3239113

Consider yourself kicked!

3211035
Collapsing against the relatively cool mud-brick wall, a light skinned woman blows her tatty red and yellow bangs out of her face with a frustrated puff, she slides down the wall into the dust, unmindful of the decomposing liter strewn about the area. Sunset shimmer ran her slender hands down her face with a tired scowl, inwardly cursing at the amount of precious moisture being lost.
Lately that's all that's been on her mind, the basic necessities, food, shelter and above all water. Her head lolled to the side to gaze blearily at the tattered remains of her jacket that was wrapped around her sides as if to lament over how far things had gotten out of hand, running her nimble fingers over the ruined leather. Maybe she should have let those men in black take her, it had to have been better than this, this wasn't living, it was barely even survival.

Her hand found the bridge of her nose and her eyes clenched shut, letting out a weary sigh. When she opened them, still cast in a scowl due to the building headache that had been overtaking her, she found that her eyes wondered across the dusty alleyway and into the street where groups of people dressed in rags mingled on the dirt streets under the blistering sun. They filled the air with the muffled sound of barter and idle chater in whatever incomprehensible gibberish these Liberian folk conversed in, the aura it bathed the town in wasn't a happy atmosphere but rather a kind of excited apathy to the injustice committed all around.

Animals She hissed to herself.

Not a day went by when she didn't bear witness to people devouring the flesh of other human beings, or the cries of a woman being forced upon. She found her hands once again cradling her face as if it would offer some relief to the situation at hand, she had every reason to suspect that she was going to die here. At least the wall she was slumped against provided some meager relief from that fucking sun. She hated this place, she hated the sun, she hated Celestia.

The summer seemed to last forever.

>Sunset shimmer gets chased by the US government after the equestria girls debacle.
>She flees to Liberia.
>She comes to realize that Liberia sucks.
Fuck sentence structure.

3246191

Please note: whenever Wrath writes in his true voice, I squeal merrily.

WONDERFUL! I love it. I totally sympathise with Sunset Shimmer! Now I hate Celestia too!

- ... surely you jest, mm?

- I'm critiquing a short fiction. Please don't kill me.

3246418

It was hot. Too hot.

A rancid stench, consisting primarily of body odour and baked flora, stirred me from a restless attempt at much needed sleep. The still night air hung as some decomposing effigy about the bedchambers, and the reek of horseflesh reminded me of strenuous sexual activity in the worst possible way. It tasted like a sweaty wig dipped in unwashed socks. I choked on it a little.

I rolled myself to the insufficiently cooler side of the bed, throwing my sheets upon the floor in a fluid movement, landing muzzle first into a boiling pillow. I screamed a stream of colourful language into the cushion, beating it with my hooves, then went limp.

Maybe, if I were lucky, I'd smother myself there.

Sadly, after a minute or two, I elected to turn my head and take a deep breath - a fetid, sweltering intake that brought on a gagging cough. It was refreshing and nauseating all at the same time. I couldn't have been less enthused.

June began with a brutal wave of melting discomfort; Spring flowers wilted, cool breezes ceased, and vapid comments regarding the weather went from cheerful optimism to damning profanity. Being a mare of temperate preference, the mark of its arrival left me less than pleased. Although the ceaseless seasons pass without a care for those they affect, summer especially remained a time of woeful torture.

Much to the delight of others close to me.

"Good morning Luna," Celestia beamed the next day. "I hope you slept well."

"Go fuck yourself, you heartless monster," I muttered.

In hindsight, I regret having been so terse.

The summer seemed to last forever.