On the first of each month, Prompt & Circumstance will provide new prompts in four different categories: Six Words, Run With It, Imagine, and Whatta Character. The main goal of our quarterly journal, Promptly, is to help you to ignite your writing process. Please use our prompts however you will, without restriction. If you start off inspired by something, but veer completely off track, that’s okay. We give you permission to twist and shrink and launch.

Beginning in 2014, Prompt & Circumstance will be holding two contests per year, one in the spring and one in the autumn, in order to determine the contents and contributors of Promptly. To help facilitate this, P&C will now be accepting rolling submissions, each of which will be considered for the upcoming contest. Pieces will be chosen for the first place, $50 award, two $25 second place awards, and three honorable mentions, and all winning pieces will be featured in Promptly.  Additionally, by submitting, you may have the chance to have your work featured on our site in the meantime, along with an “Author Spotlight” interview. Final decisions for the spring contest will be made by April, and by October for the fall contest.

The guidelines are simple: Tell us which prompt you used, include a few sentences about your process, and send us the result.