Recently, over on Medium, in the publication I help to edit, we had a Thrifty Words Challenge. As it was valentine's day on Monday (the day each challenge comes out) the challenge was Love.

I may have suggested doing thrifty words challenges on read.cash and not really received very much interest. Let me describe what Thrifty Words Theme Challenge is and what the challenge entails.

Thrifty Words is a section of our online publication, The Bad Influence, where people are challenged to write microstories. The microstories must be either EXACTLY 50 words or EXACTLY 100 words. We even have guidance under each Thrifty Words Theme Challenge

Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one word, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.)

Sound fun? It is. It is also very challenging. To get your meaning across, to evoke a mood, to have clever wordplay in exactly 50 or exactly 100 words is hard. It is also incredibly rewarding.

The Bad Influence has 7 editors but only 4 of us create the challenges. The actual challenge is issued based on a prompt or theme. The theme can be one word or an idea or a piece of music. Last week's theme for the challenge was Love. I did not write this challenge, nor did I write the introduction to the challenge or to the roundup (when all the challenge responses are gathered up into one story or article.) Usually, the writer/editor who writes the challenge also writes the roundup intro.

Last week @demeterdelune (wife of @damiandelune ) wrote both the challenge and the roundup introductions.

I participated in the Thrifty Words Theme Challenge last week by writing a 50 word response. My response was inspired by an inside joke between Keith and me. The joke is (it's not funny to everyone) to say in an exaggerated fashion, "If you REALLY loved me . . . " and finish with whatever it is we are trying to get the other person to do.

Both Keith and I have been on the receiving end of people, who in all seriousness, have used the phrase, "If you really loved me . . . " to attempt to manipulate a certain result. Both Keith and I may have found ourselves guilty of using the phrase. I mean, not since we were very young. I do have a distinct memory of Keith using the phrase on me and my reply, "I guess I don't really love you then."

This was just before our separation which led to divorce.

Since then (our early twenties) we have both learned how incredibly manipulative that statement, that phrase, really is. We have both learned our knee-jerk response is to do exactly the opposite of whatever the end goal behavior the statement introduces.

Valentine's Day is a big one for us. As are Christmas and Birthdays. Any day where gift-giving is an apparent obligation. We just can't stand the expectation of Valentine's Day, birthdays, and Christmas gifts. When either of us feels obligated to give a gift, we feel an immense amount of pressure. We want to get the gift just right. We can't spend a lot of money because we don't have a lot of money. We can't make grand gestures.

It is to the point that rather than being the reason Keith feels obligated to give me a gift on my birthday, I would give him a gift on my birthday. For years.

But we still, jokingly, use the "If you really loved me . . . " phrase. Only without the expectations or condemnations attached.

Because @demeterdelune used Valentine's Day as the foundation for her theme Love, I was inspired to write the following (exactly 50 word) response.

If You Really Loved Me

Fifty Words Challenge #77: Love

I shouldn’t have to tell you how I feel. I shouldn’t have to communicate my wants and desires.

Don’t you know that if you really loved me you would know without me telling you how to respond, what to say, what to buy?

If you really loved me, you’d know.

I'm not completely certain everyone will read this in a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek voice in their heads.

That was my response to the theme challenge. For this prompt, I would like you to just write what pops into your mind when you hear or read the word love. Any kind of love; romantic, parental, friends, obsessive, objectifying, whatever.

To participate in this prompt, I hope you follow these few simple steps.

1. Join the Promptly Jonica community here

2. Write anything about love

3. Write 100% original content

4. Submit your article to PromptlyJonica

5. Tag me, @JonicaBradley

6. Have fun!

Don't forget, you can find all of the prompts here and you can write responses to any of the prompts any time as many times as you want forever. If you really like Prompt #7, for example, you can just keep writing about compassion. Again and again. Please do follow the steps above for each prompt response. Thank you.

Also, if you want some brownie points, head on over to Medium and read some stories from The Bad Influence. Or at the very least, give @demeterdelune some love by reading (and thumbs up and a small tip would be great) her or @damiandelune 's articles here on read.cash.

Oh! And let me know if you would be interested in some sort of microstories community here. I'll see if I can't create one.

Lead and first image license free from Unsplash