The Prompt
Write a story inspired by the recent Artemis II mission.
There are so many options here, even if you don’t want to write about space travel:
- someone is far from home;
- four people are living in cramped conditions;
- someone has worked for years on a life-changing project and then has to turn it over to the people who will be the public face, and learn to stand back and watch;
- someone sees a thing for the first time in human history;
- someone who opposed a project has to watch while it succeeds;
- people who have been fighting for years are suddenly united in support of an extraordinary event…
There was so much wonder surrounding the Artemis mission, with all it’s ‘first time in 50 years, with all this new technology!’ hype, I’m going to argue for writing a story, today, that contains some of that wonder, awe, and togetherness.
But that’s just me. You write what you want 😉
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. She can no longer say “the last time we went to the moon I was 6 months old!!” and she’s OK with that. She wonders what we will do with the 50 years of stellar sci-fi ‘what ifs’ that we’ve written since then…
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
Today I wrote a story about someone going fishing. I’m finding it really hard to keep going with this challenge! Today I have hit a wall. So, my four sentence story that has a start, middle, and finish, it does count, it keeps me going. Maybe tomorrow I will feel more creative. Fingers crossed!
It is hard, particularly at this point.
But remember it’s perfectly valid to write a sketch or outline for a story you’ll revise later.
I struggled with this one but decided to do it in journal form. Not sure if it’s any good but here’s the link.
https://giggiwrites.blogspot.com/2026/05/crystals-journal.html
Lisa, cute story!
Lisa, excellent, and I love the link out to the story.
Oh, this was fun on several levels, from the warmup to brainstorming to writing a story about kids in the back seat of a station wagon (the kind with the slick seats that beg, in an era before seatbelts, for deliberate slides when the car goes around a corner) and all of the territory disputes this can cause. I have a couple of other ideas that are sprouting about this prompt so I may work a few more out today. Not sure yet! =)
I did “Letters from a Lonely Planet” – missives between the first space colonist and Missin Dispatch.
*Mission
I connected with the idea of someone who can’t connect with wonder and gave this character something wonderful to experience–first contact with friendly aliens.
Great prompt! I hope everyone’s writing goes well.
I love the wonder call.
I took the direct approach, and wrote about two friends, U.S. and Canadian, who were able to rise above their worries to take hope from the launch.
Here’s what I posted on LinkedIn the day of the launch. I tried to capture some of the feelings in my story:
I just watched the launch of Artemis II, which contrasted sharply with the Apollo launches I watched so many years ago, and in other ways echoed them.
• Confidence. This wasn’t some balls-to-the-walls risky adventure to meet a U.S. President’s challenge. The risks associated with spaceflight remain huge, but they are now well managed.
• Speaking of balls, there were senior women’s voices on the command channels. None in 1972. Whatever else is bad (a lot!) there have been some positive changes in the last fifty years.
• Process. IT DR procedures are so similar to a launch countdown that I always feel an affinity. NASA has, as we all should, turned a lot over to autonomous procedures that do a better job than humans can of sequencing complex procedures. They also, as we all should, keep a human hand near the abort button.
• Faith. Belief. That remains remarkably unchanged. The spaceship Integrity is going to the moon.
Julie,
Great minds, would you believe my Story Idea #63 ‘Alien Observation of Artemis II Splashdown’ and your day 19 are so aligned. I can declare again that I think I’ve possibly achieved two prompts in a row, one story, two days in a row. https://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/artemis-ii.html
Have a good day, everyone.
Fun story, Andrew! Thanks for sharing.
I did not follow the prompt today. Instead as I woke up this morning, I thought ‘how would the other character respond to what happened in yesterday’s story?” So, I went with that. 122 words and the final line:
He had to be okay. They couldn’t hate him if he wasn’t okay.
Because of budget cuts the amenities inside the capsule were pretty miserable. Despite this, the astronauts worked their talents in ways that almost canceled out the problems. So far 500ish words, before I add more stuff. I like that the prompt was taken from something that just happened.
I love the different angles people take to these scenarios. I never thought inside the capsule at all.