99-words at Carrot Ranch

Carrot Ranch exists to make literary art accessible 99 words at a time. Charli Mills is founder and lead buckaroo of an international literary community at CarrotRanch.com. She hosts a 99-word writing challenge weekly. It’s a safe place to grow as a writer among writers and contribute to a collaborative collection.

What can you do with 99 words as literary art?

  • Tell a story with a beginning, middle, and ending.
  • Reduce a memory into a poignant reflection.
  • Craft a dialog, setting, or verse.
  • Train your brain to resolve a 99-word constraint. It’s like magic; but really it’s science (Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More Than Your Imagined by Scott Sonenshein).
  • Learn about the art form and recipes for writing here.

Practice writing 99-words a week to expand creativity and craft skills. Writers can submit their stories for publication. Carrot Ranch posts a weekly collection arranged as a collaboration of diverse perspectives, styles, and genres on a single theme or subject. All writers are welcome to participate.

  • Find the latest Challenge Post every Friday at CarrotRanch.com/blog.
  • Respond with 99-words (any genre, story-structure, memoir, verse).
  • Post in the comments or link to your response if you post at your blog.
  • Submit through the provided form to be published in the next weekly collection.
  • Make new writer friends by commenting positively on the stories of others.

Writers are not critiqued at Carrot Ranch. The community practices mentorship, offering encouragement and growth. Bloggers can link up. Writers without blogs can connect through a comment section. Everyone participates — writing, reading, and discussing — as much or as little as they feel comfortable.

The greatest value in literary art is that it opens minds to unfamiliar experiences. In a divisive world full of information, it’s the word-crafters who remind us of the humanity in it all. Literary artists inspire, agitate, reveal, imagine and reflect the good and bad within us. Literary artists give meaning to life. Consider the words John Lennon wrote:

“When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Literary art belongs to the people. Tell your story today in 99 words, no more, no less.

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