NEWSLETTER | WRITING PROMPT
Badform Badassery Monthly — A Newsletter
A newsletter? Yes, Badform is growing up
Just three months ago this publication opened its doors to welcome the work of badass writers across Medium.
Born with the purpose of publishing one single silly story, it turned out to be just what many were looking for — a place to let loose and stop being so nice. We all need somewhere to do that, right?
And then the following three months saw us wing it through a series of “bad” writing prompts and lots of generally snarky-ass masterpieces.
It’s been fun but I started to wonder where we were going with it all. I felt like we were stuck in the realms of adolescence, unwilling to commit to a life of responsibility as a publication on the Medium platform.
It hasn’t helped that during the last month, our entire editing team has been dealing with a combination of burnout, overwhelm, sickness, and more, and we just haven’t been on our badass game.
But those issues are just temporary. We are all still here, hanging in there and getting ourselves into good (bad) spaces again, ready for an amazing season of…well, all those amazing things that the final three months of the year brings.
And, to start this last quarter in style, I am finally writing the first official monthly newsletter of Badform — Badform Badassery Monthly. It feels like such an incredibly grown up journey for this cheeky, teenage publication to venture into, and it makes me feel like a proud parent to see it evolve.
So, welcome to the first edition of The Badform Badassery Monthly, and let’s get on with it.
This Month’s ‘Bad’ Prompt
It’s October, guys! The month of spooky incidents, mysterious ghoulish goings on, and downright freaky affairs.
No, don’t leave so soon. It’s not that bad really.
Okay, I lie. It is that bad. It’s really bad, and really scary.
Which is why we are honouring the world of spookdom with a really scary prompt — The Bad Scare.
We want to hear the worst, the scariest, and the seriously badly scary, so sock it to us!
Don’t forget to use the tag/topic “The Bad Scare” so that we can easily find your prompt responses.
Last Month’s Brilliantly Badass Tales
September may have been a slow month at Badform, but we had no shortage of brilliance and badassery with some corkers from some of our regular contributors.
In response to “The Bad Feeling” prompt
There are certain feelings we do NOT want to ever get when we are zooming around on a rollercoaster, as Shirley Laffa shared in An Amusement Park Ride.
Joy DeSomber gave it to us raw and naked in Raw and Naked Feels So Wrong.
You Either Love ASMR or You Hate It says Alex P., or if you’ve never tried it, take Alex’s word for it. What a feeling indeed!
CatHERine had a bad feeling that turned out to be a warning for a different kind of bad in The Initial Bad Feeling That I Did Not Think Much of Led to Something.
Yep, I sometimes get those annoying feelings arising when they are particularly inconvenient, like a global disaster, for instance. As I share in The Problem With All Those Niggling Unwelcome Feelings.
And Bernice P. shared an experience she will never repeat, now she knows what a bad feeling it comes with, in I Survived the Aritzia Warehouse Sale.
Other Badform l̶i̶t̶t̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ lifting our pub
Beginning with sound **ahem** relationship advice from Lilith Helstrom, we have The Passive Aggressive Way To Find Out Whether A Man Is Listening To You Or Not.
It seems that the introduction of airport security surrounding liquids was actually to control people like Mona S Gable and nothing to do with potential explosives and terrorism, as we found out in Look! Up in the Sky, a Terrified Person Day Drinking.
One of the most delightful things about road trips is taking in the view, be it of distant mountain ranges, forest, the coast and the ocean beyond, happy children playing in the suburbs, or two perfectly placed and aptly named stores. As The Sturg shared in I Never Thought That I’d See These Two Stores Next To Each Other at a Mall.
I have been eastbound, westbound, northbound, and housebound but I have never been egg-bound. But Deb Groves Harman has, or her hen has at any rate: An Egg-Bound Hen and Her Vaginal Vent.
The proclamation of our new king over here in Blighty reminded me of some serious badform that said king once performed for our delightful benefit. “Flowery” is putting it lightly: My Dad’s ‘Flowery’ Encounter With the Now-King of England
Our own amazing Sofia Chen shared one of her beautifully witty and fabulously illustrated stories all about…Hair — An Illustrated Story.
Jocelyn G shared with us her secret indulgence in utter sap. Check it out — you might find yourself getting as carried away as I did 😬 — Songs I Secretly Enjoy Listening To.
There’s nothing like keeping it real when it comes to caring for older people, especially when we wonder who will care for us, as Denise Estey Lindquist shared in Who Will Care For You When You Are Old And Need That Kind Of Care?
Keeping it real about caring for someone later in life is one thing but what happens when we bring about the beginning of life? Alicia Domínguez shared her experience of choosing to keep it real and how that brought about all sorts of connections right here on Medium: People Who Share Their Views On Childbirth Are Stronger Together
And now…for the September MBA Award
Yes, it’s time to award our monthly Master of BaddAssery Award.
This month’s MBA goes to…
……….. Janet Meisel!!!
Congratulations, Janet, for being a true badass and for being generally very awesome.
For anyone who has missed Janet’s stories, I will begin by sharing her most recent which puts traditional theories of the Law of Attraction to shame.
And here are a few of her other pure badform masterpieces:
So that’s it, boys and girls.
I am tagging the other founding members of Badform — Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles and Mike Butler because I miss them, especially the one who has gone totally MIA…you know who you are.
COME BACK MIKE!!!
Okay, that’s enough of that. Now get writing.
If you aren’t yet a writer for Badform, check out the original invitation to write for us: