Why a Themed Magazine

One of the things that I always found really fascinating on Fantasy Writers dot org is the diversity of stories that are entered in the monthly contests there. Everyone is given the same writing prompt like "natural disaster" on which to write a short story for that month's contest. One would think that since they are all Fantasy stories that they would all end up the same or similar because everyone is writing from the same prompt. But, they're not. What gets submitted is like a snapshot of human creativity. Just think how much more diverse the stories would be if the stories could be in any genre of fiction. I can't wait to see what people come up with.

Now the first theme for the first issue is "Follow the Butterflies" And I am sure more than a few people have wondered if I was drunk when I came up with that. No. I wasn't. In the movie, "Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets", Hagrid tells Ron and Harry to follow the spiders. Ron hates spiders and whinges about having to follow the spiders with the following line: "Follow the spiders! Follow the spiders! Why can't it ever be follow the butterflies?" ... ROFL ... After I stopped laughing, I thought to myself, "Yeah, why can't it be follow the butterflies, instead?" I've been wanting to see what people would come up with, with that as a writing prompt ever since. And now's my chance to get it.