What does marriage mean to you?
Sunny Side Updates with TBIN || Week 36!
The first exciting thing I want to announce is that we’ve reached 500 followers!
So many amazing contributors hopping on prompts and sharing their experience of the world with us readers ❤
So many amazing readers not only using their precious eyeball hours on our pieces, but highlighting, commenting and sharing on various social media platforms ❤
This would not have been possible without you and I am so, so grateful! ✨
Shortform Theme of the Week
This week’s shortform theme is: What does marriage mean to you? Whether you’ve never been married, currently married, married more than once — tell me your perspective on this topic!
Submit your shortform piece (<150 words) now to share your thoughts! (For prompt-based pieces, you may exceed the 150 word limit, but aim for 150 words if the idea of a longer piece overwhelms you!)
This is just a guideline for inspiration! You may submit shortforms related to other concepts if other ideas come to you! :)
✍ June Interview Challenge
Come join me in the monthly interview challenge! In this challenge, I’ll give you 5 reflection questions, 5 top five lists and 5 “prompts” to promote your articles!
Excited to get to know you as writers and overall cool human beings!
This challenge ( #June2021TBINInterview ) is open from now until June 30, 2021.
🌠 Ongoing Adventure Fiction Series!
I’ve finally launched a project that my child self has always wanted to do: create a collaborative never-ending story with branch-offs into multiple different storylines!
I’m so excited to see what direction this story will take so please don’t be shy on submitting!
Here is chapter 1!
For the most recent chapters, search “#OngoingAdventure” below! (PC users, CTRL+F is your friend. Mac users, 🤷♀️, I’m going to guess it’s CMD+F?)
The Brain is a Noodle*
*This is factually incorrect. Please absolutely do not go out and eat brains.
🍜 Piping Hot New(dle) Pieces of the Week
Challenge: *highlight* the ones you bookmarked/ read and make sure everyone gets highlighted at least once! ❤
🧠🍜 [1] Let me be me by Ashlea Morgan ‘I feel anxious often. Things in the future are distant / not in my control.’
🧠🍜 [2] Diplomats by Courtenay S. Gray ‘To fix a person/You must bow down to their needs/Acknowledge their pain/Take it all in/Ingest it like summer rain’
🧠🍜 [3] A waterfall of creative ideas by Warren Brown ‘Allow your creative ideas to flow freely,’
🧠🍜 [4] Aloe, Aloe by Jupiter Grant ‘I am like an aloe plant, I’m tough and self-reliant. Don’t coddle me or over-fuss or I’ll droop in sheer defiance.’
🧠🍜 [5] Insult by Coco Joanan ‘This forest curls over the edges of the garden like a wave And threatens to crash into the lawn.’
🧠🍜 [6] Under the Bed, Unseen by Dave Logan ‘What’s hiding under my bed? Wouldn’t you like to know…’
🧠🍜 [7] How to Embrace The Chaos of Life by Emily Wilcox ‘Right now my existence is more chaotic than ever.’
🧠🍜 [8] What Kind of ‘Plant’ Am I? by Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg) ‘For a while I was the duuude In the mood to just get screwed. Up in the clouds, my head so high For many years parents sighed.’
🧠🍜 [9] Word Salad, Word Sauce Poem by Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg) ‘Doesn’t sweeten it much or give them a crutch Said “hi” to one fellow tryna be mellow’
🧠🍜 [10] Sanguine by Courtenay S. Gray ‘In my current state/I need a stamp to satiate/my despair and undue care/leaving room for a space in my heart’
🧠🍜 [11] The Lucky One by Jessie Waddell ‘You never hesitate to tell me, The ways we aren’t the same, You want me to fit the mould, Like it won’t cause any pain.’
🧠🍜 [12] Improbable by Dr. Fatima Imam ‘Quick fix does the trick. Quick detour to old memories disturbs the equilibrium. Quick reactions exhaust the mental ethos. Quick appraisal leads to solutions.’
🧠🍜 [13] What’s Hiding Under Your Bed? by VV Valentine ‘In the dead of night I hear them Under the bed Their conspiratorial murmurings’
🧠🍜 [14] Money by HerPrivateLife ‘A life without money isn’t a life they said But there are those who live happily without money’
🧠🍜 [15] Change Is a Mindset by The Dozen ‘Hate or love it, you are right. It’s not your fault if you hate it, you’ve been programmed.’
🧠🍜 [16] The Definition of a Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie by B.R. Shenoy ‘There are countless varieties of chocolate chip cookies, ranging in size, texture, and flavors. The brown sugar chocolate chip cookie is my personal favorite.’
🧠🍜 [17] Things I Will Make More Time For This Month by Sahil Patel ‘This month, I will give more time to my poetry, So that my words can shine, And my heart feels good.’
🧠🍜 [18] A Girl, Three Guys, And A Gun…Oh, And Granny by Jennifer McDougall ‘Have you heard of this cheesy film? IMDb calls it quite grim 4.7 out of ten slightly less than Matchstick Men’
🧠🍜 [19] I Demand A Recount! by Nada Chehade ‘I was walking around feeling accomplished just last week. I finally reached 1,000 followers. I never reached 1,000 anything. It felt like a writing milestone. I actually bought a cape for the occasion and was gearing myself up to release a statement to my haters.’
🧠🍜 [20] Madam Pomerac by Nerissa Talique ‘I am but like a pomerac tree, Unassuming but silently grand. A slim willowy thing, that many fail to understand.’
🧠🍜 [21] Helpless by HerPrivateLife ‘Helping others makes you smile, Seeing them happy makes you smile,’
🧠🍜 [22] SBTTS by KSHernandez ‘a haiku: To the Survivors of Human Trafficking’
🧠🍜 [23] Haiku How-To, by the Numbers by Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg) ‘a haiku, there’s Japanese! 👀👀👀’
🧠🍜 [24] Yam Wun Sen by James G Brennan ‘“Yam Wun Sen”. “Salad long noodle”. (Stretched rice noodles, extracting starch). No relation to Paroma Sen, we would never, stretch nor devour a member of the Sen family, dearest Paroma!’
🧠🍜 [25] Stillness Is Not Stagnation by Bingz Huang ‘Stillness is not stagnation It’s an expansive flow’
🧠🍜 [26] Squares in a Game by Warren Brown ‘In the chess game which we call life,’
🧠🍜 [27] The Healing Physician by Warren Brown ‘a tiny poem — click through to read the whole thing! ‘
🧠🍜 [28] Fixing People by Warren Brown ‘(a tiny poem about) Uncomplicated Machines’
🧠🍜 [29] Life Doesn’t Need to Be Interesting for Our Writing to Be by Rambling Rose ‘Life doesn’t need to be interesting for our writing to be. At least, not in the traditional sense. Take mine, for example. I am an oddball introverted hermit with ADHD, low-self esteem and a perchance for emo poetry.’
🔊 Voices to Amplify
We don’t have to leave it to the algorithm to suggest our favourite pieces! Here are some of my archived faves!
Thank you to Adam Deitsch, Shivangi Patel, James G Brennan, Dr. Fatima Imam, Ruchi Thalwal, Pretheesh Presannan for these pieces! ❤
The Eggcademic Corner
🥓 Quick brEGGfast Bites
What I’m watching: Grey’s Anatomy — Just wrapped up s7!
What I’m reading: Normal People — Sally Rooney
What I’m listening to: The Planets, Op. 32: I, Mars, the Bringer of War
A QUICKIE UPDATE
MY SECOND FAN IS HERE AND MY LIFE HAS BEEN CHANGED 🐤
A Longer-Form Explanation Context: I’m very fortunate to be living in a one-bedroom apartment, which means that my sleeping / bedroom space is separate from my “living room” space (which is mostly just office / kitchenette). The dumbest thing is that when summer rolls around, wherever I go, I have to bring my fan, and the fan I have actually has legs that are slightly too big to go through my bedroom door. So you have to strategically angle it to the side before bringing it in, and you most certainly cannot do it in the dark. Which is a problem. Because I live in a basement. 🤣 It’s annoying but definitely in a privileged problem kind of way, but I’ve finally gotten myself a cheap second fan to stay inside my bedroom. 🎊
🎊 Top 3 articles of the week
Celebrate with me!
😭 Flop 3 articles of the week
Give these a little love, will ya?
🧠🍜 Thank you to the Noodle Team!
challenge: pick 3 writers you haven’t met yet and get acquainted with their pieces!
New writers: HerPrivateLife | Sohrab Khandelwal | Nerissa Talique | Gracia Kleijnen | Betsy Denson | KSHernandez | Luke DeLalio | Rachella Angel Page | Teressa P.
VV Valentine | Bhavya Mehta | Suntonu Bhadra | Noah Levy | Suzy Hazelwood | Ashlea Morgan | LS | Jessie Waddell | Dave Logan | Candy Marie | Himanshi B | Zihan | Elle How | K.S. | Sherry McGuinn | Diana Dee | Rambling Rose | Doran Lamb | Avi Kotzer | A.M. Radulescu | Laurie Perez | Paul Mansfield | B.R. Shenoy | Nada Chehade| Coco Joan | Bingz Huang | Shreya Badonia | Kimberly Carter | Las siete y más | Warren Brown | Trista Signe Ainswort | Kyomi O’Connor | Kay Bee | MaggieLaFae | Alex Godley | Haider Jamal | Josie Elbiry | Anthony Jackson | Hannah M. Moore | Michael Hollifield | Yana Bostongirl | TC Hails | Orla Kenny | Samedra Carter | Tatum Hamernik | Thalia Dunn | Nia Simone McLeod | Josie Elbiry | Keegan Roembke | Noorain Hassan, BMS | Humaira Iqbal | Zachary Burg | Bob Pepe | Will Hull | Jason | Courtenay S. Gray | Sahil Patel | Meenal Gupta | Amy Lee Kite | Evan Wildstein | Hilda Carroll | Chloe Hill | Paola Perez | Matt Ray | Wolfie Bain | Dena Ogden | Tasneem Kagalwalla | Yan Huang | Tree Langdon | Stuart Englander | Jennifer McDougall | Aaron Kemp | Rachel Ramkaran (she/her) | LS | Lori Welch Brown | Nicole Jiang | Crystalclearcandace | Em Unravelling | Jupiter Grant | Elle Beau ❇︎ | Suman Sandhu | Adam Deitsch | Mia Z. Edwards | David Majister | JF | Zach Neuman | Chris Mooney-Singh | Toya Qualls-Barnette | Karen Lappa Haas | Alan Henley | Michelle Bonfils | Zach Klebaner | Anna | Deepshikha Bhagat | Carlos Garbiras | Katrina Bos | Lisa Bolin | Sohaib Roomi | The Dozen | Malik Bellamy | Olivia Th | Shaista Malik | Emily Wilcox | Brajendra | Eva Rotolo | Bhavna Narula | Shannon Hugman | Ryan DeJonghe | Ryan DeJonghe | Dennett | Swagat Choudhury | Vivian | Mark Tulin | Arslan Mirza | Amber Carlson | Urfa | Whatsinanaim | Amy Pierovich, Ed.D. | Carolyn Riker | Tally | Shivangi Patel | Giulia | ScienceDuuude | Rachael Ann Sand | Divina Grey | Sarah Paris | DISHA GARG | Jen Kleinknecht | janny’s heart | Penofgold | Blank Voice | Kele Mogotsi | Jessie London | Indubala Kachhawa | Radhika Ghose | Mil H. | Zeno Faber | Maziar Ghaderi | Julia Appa | Campbell Christensen | Allison Gaines | Lori Lamothe | Tima Loku | Kim McKinney | Baye Amina | Tom Fenske | Johannes Mudi | Kasun Ranasinghe | Just a Slytherin hissing | Dr. Fatima Imam | Ntathu Allen | Somsubhra Banerjee | Veronica Georgieva | Life is Amazing with Books and Writers | Dandy Lioness 🌻 | Mindsmatter | Michael Ranjitsingh | Anjali Samaraweera | Krupesh Raikar | Rusty Alderson | Dr. Preeti Singh | Punch Drunk Cola | Melissa Speed | Ntathu Allen | Denise G | Carolyn Hastings | Tej | Vijini Mallawaarachchi | Amy Marley | Jac Gautreau | Erivaldo Ricardo | Roz Warren | Melissa Bee | Pretheesh Presannan | Daniel A. Teo | Anuradha Wickramarachchi | Niru | Priyanka Mane | Em Hoccane | Synthia S. | Alexandra Forsyth | R. Rangan PhD | Jacobo the First | Connie Song | Fathiyah Zb | Not quite Steve Fisher | Amna Asif | Aimée Gramblin | A Fresh Pot of Coffee | Rebecca Stevens A. | Imad | James G Brennan | Mary Keating | Jay Avery | h.a wadi | Pablo Pereyra | Isaac | jenine bsharah baines | Rochelle Silva | Jade-Ceres Violet D. Munoz | Ruchi Thalwal | Clare Almand | Dana Sanford | Naomi Leilani Acosta | Dr. Jackie Greenwood | Fathiyah Zb |
Ps, if any of these links are outdated, please leave a note to let me know!
🧠🍜 Join us at The Brain is a Noodle! 🧠🍜
Last but probably most important
Hop on the jumbo thread!