Announcing our Wherefore Art Thou story competition

Art is everywhere. From the arc of a ballerina’s arms, to the explosion of colour in a stained glass window. From the familiar strokes of a famous painting, to that instantly-recognisable melodic strain opening a song.

Sex and art have always been intertwined. When all around us things seem to make no sense, we do well to look for the beauty in the world and in each other.

For this competition, we want you to get creative with creativity itself. Maybe dance performers get rid of pre-show jitters in a fun and physical way. Maybe someone takes up pole dancing as a new exercise regime and enjoys the benefits of additional flexibility. Or perhaps an artist and their muse act out erotic acts to really cement the visuals in the artist’s head.

As always, we invite you to choose from the vast array of categories Lush has to offer. The word limit for this competition is a healthy 5,000 words. We will accept Flash stories for this competition, but they must be 800-1000 words long. No poetry or micros, please.

This competition will run through Sunday August 9th and winners will be announced on Monday August 17th

Lush competitions bring out the best in our authors. Unfortunately, cash prizes also attract fraudsters. If we deem you to have submitted a story to the competition which uses AI for writing or editing, you will be banned from this, and all future competitions, so we would recommend keeping any working notes and drafts as you go. If you have used AI to translate, edit or enhance your work in the past, we would strongly advise against. We will treat this the same as using AI to create and you may be banned for cheating.

For more details, please visit https://www.lushstories.com/competitions/wherefore-art-thou

Well, the theme's already made your resident philistine laugh, so that's one box ticked already!🤣

Some visual stimulation 😇

Mon dieu! Here I am, writing 15,000 words for a three part story about an artist... then you do this. I am checking for secret cameras and listening devices as we speak. Should I enter? Sigh ... of course, because as an artist, it is the creative challenge. Do I expect to win... non, never... will I have a good try? Of course. And, oh, do I have a story...

To our heroic moderators, I tip my palette knife to you. This is inspired...

I like this a lot. It's a place I have gone with stories before but not in a while so I hope to be able to put something together.

For inspiration, here is one of my favourite songs about art and creativity. Well, one of my favourite songs, period. This performance also introduced to me the wonderful musical artist who has been my favourite singer for the past five years or so.

From the lyrics (by Tuomas Holopainen):

It was the night before
When all through the world
No words, no dreams, then one day
A writer by a fire
Imagined all of Gaia
Took a journey into a child-man's heart

A painter on the shore
Imagined all the world
Within the snowflake on his palm
A dream of poetry
A canvas of awe
Planet Earth falling back into the stars

Woooo! It's Lush Comp Time Let's Goooo!!!!

Squueeeaaaalllllllll!

Fuck, I love the theme! I’ll be back with hot sex and art and more sex and more art and ending with more fucking hot sex and some art.

Bring it, all you talented smut writers!

Edit:

I’ve lost complete control of my characters. Fuckers don’t seem to want to fuck at all. So…

I’ll be back with my noir story for an art competition 🙄, but it has origami as another character though 😀, and a little bit of sex somewhere, I pinky promise.

:bolt:

Don't know shit about art, but I might try something. Operative word being "might." Haven't drafted anything in over a year.

I call my erotica 'arthouse erotica' I HAVE to come up with something for this theme LOL or I'm a shame to my brand 😢 and we can't have that, NOPENOPENOPE. Off to the smut-lab to cook up something hawt, weird and very, very artsy

stares at the blank page and blinking cursor that mocks me

🤬

Wait.... Maybe that could be the opening line...

I love the new competition theme. What a coincidence. Part two of 'A Toast' is a writer and her mentor and a fan visiting a visual arts museum. 😂 Now I think I need a whole new story for the comp.

Thank you, @Jen and the team for opening another fun challenge.

Well there's a coincidence. I am 2000 words into my next story which features an artist and her model. So it might even be possible that, for the first time ever, I will submit in the first half of the allowed time. No promises, knowing me I'm more likely still to be editing into August.

No "happy accidents" like that for me this time, although it has happened to me in the past. I do have a basic premise forming now, though the plot details are still a bit sketchy.

Sometimes I manage to get my entry submitted during the first half, or even the early days, of a competition, but that seems pretty unlikely this time. Getting this right will require a lot of research. I'm also starting to put a ton of thought and research into my Steampunk story, which for seasonality reasons absolutely must be done in July. Yesterday I spent some time considering how to make that story artier and eligible for the competition to avoid overloading myself, but I really don't think that's the direction that one wants to go.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Squueeeaaaalllllllll!

Fuck, I love the theme! I’ll be back with hot sex and art and more sex and more art and ending with more fucking hot sex and some art.

Bring it, all you talented smut writers!

There is nothing better than hearing you squeal, Kimmi! 🥰

Quote by EmilyLace

There is nothing better than hearing you squeal, Kimmi! 🥰

Emily, my cat would disagree. 🤣

Quote by CarltonStJames

Don't know shit about art, but I might try something. Operative word being "might." Haven't drafted anything in over a year.

You can do it, C! Art is everywhere. In unexpected places. Music is art. You listen to music, right?

Quote by KimmiBeGood

You can do it, C! Art is everywhere. In unexpected places. Music is art. You listen to music, right?

Meh. Kinda... Sorta. I do have sprinklings of an idea, but my mental bandwidth hasn't been the best lately, so I wish myself the best of luck with forming even a layout.

Me: Let’s write a sexy love story involving art! 😀

My imagination: yeeeah… no.

Me: But why!?!?

My imagination: I’m in my dark era.

Me: But but but… readers are calling me KimmiBeCreepy

My imagination: It’s a compliment.

Me: Well, we aren’t offing anyone!

My imagination: Just two. 😈 But they weren’t fucking, so it’s okay. 😎

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Me: Let’s write a sexy love story involving art! 😀

My imagination: yeeeah… no.

Me: But why!?!?

My imagination: I’m in my dark era.

Me: But but but… readers are calling me KimmiBeCreepy

My imagination: It’s a compliment.

Me: Well, we aren’t offing anyone!

My imagination: Just two. 😈 But they weren’t fucking, so it’s okay. 😎

Looking forward to an artistic, dark erotica by KimmiBeCreepy

I have a feeling the word count cap is gonna do me in again ... I had a story that would work perfect for this comp but 4k words in and still in the exposition. so that one is out with a 5k max cap. but I have some ideas brewing I think, it will just boil down to 'which one is short enough for the comp' lolol

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Me: Let’s write a sexy love story involving art! 😀

My imagination: yeeeah… no.

Me: But why!?!?

My imagination: I’m in my dark era.

Me: But but but… readers are calling me KimmiBeCreepy

My imagination: It’s a compliment.

Me: Well, we aren’t offing anyone!

My imagination: Just two. 😈 But they weren’t fucking, so it’s okay. 😎

"Fear is a great place to begin art" - The art teacher in the movie, Speak, based on the book by Laurie Halse Anderson (sp?) - this is off the top of my head, but still the quote is shared to validate taht being in a dark era doesn't mean you're not artsy. I'm in a dark era too, fwiw. I'm just weird, though, its my brand lol Luce "the Weird one" Devlin. as it were.

Quote by LuceDevlin

"Fear is a great place to begin art" - The art teacher in the movie, Speak, based on the book by Laurie Halse Anderson (sp?) - this is off the top of my head, but still the quote is shared to validate taht being in a dark era doesn't mean you're not artsy. I'm in a dark era too, fwiw. I'm just weird, though, its my brand lol Luce "the Weird one" Devlin. as it were.

I love that quote! And me lovey weirdness, too! So, bring it, Luce!

Quote by LuceDevlin

I have a feeling the word count cap is gonna do me in again ...

Yeah, This is the part where I say, "I've got a concept in mind." Look for me to come back in a few days pissed off that I wasn't able to work it out in the allotted word count. I may go ahead with it anyway, and just publish it as a regular story. Then I'll come back in a couple of weeks with a much sillier idea for the competition. Seems to be the way the last couple of contests have worked out for me. Maybe bitching about word-limits is just part of my creative process now.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

Yeah, This is the part where I say, "I've got a concept in mind." Look for me to come back in a few days pissed off that I wasn't able to work it out in the allotted word count. I may go ahead with it anyway, and just publish it as a regular story. Then I'll come back in a couple of weeks with a much sillier idea for the competition. Seems to be the way the last couple of contests have worked out for me. Maybe bitching about word-limits is just part of my creative process now.

That's when you cut out filler words or hyphenate phrases 🤭

Quote by utterchaos

That's when you cut out filler words or hyphenate phrases 🤭

How dare you suggest anything I write is "filler!" All my words are liquid gold flowing from my keyboard.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

How dare you suggest anything I write is "filler!" All my words are liquid gold flowing from my keyboard.

I remember for the last competition I entered, I had a real challenge to be selective with my words and not lose meaning, description or devolve into a mess of run-on-sentences. 6000 words was brutal when world building was required and I got to the point where I was eyeing up every single word and seeing whether the sentence could still be understood without it.

My mind is a blank; my old job was viewed by some as art, but I need to put my thinking cap on and see if I could wrangle it into a story that engages and entrances. Oh, my thinking cap turned out to be a big thick blanket :-(

It's harder than it first seems, as they say in Innuendoland, isn't it? I've gone for abstract art featuring a mass of bodies covered in paint, rolling around on white bedsheets in an art studio, and a guest, an older gent, creating his own masterpiece on a black bedsheet with the help of his new neighbour, who is friends with everyone else. Nothing bonkers from me, then.... 🤣

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

Yeah, This is the part where I say, "I've got a concept in mind." Look for me to come back in a few days pissed off that I wasn't able to work it out in the allotted word count. I may go ahead with it anyway, and just publish it as a regular story. Then I'll come back in a couple of weeks with a much sillier idea for the competition. Seems to be the way the last couple of contests have worked out for me. Maybe bitching about word-limits is just part of my creative process now.

Valid!!! I'm just writing 5k words of notes and random ideas first it seems I've had like 10 ideas, but they all feel longer than 5k words to do them justice. either way I'll find something. I've got til August after all

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

How dare you suggest anything I write is "filler!" All my words are liquid gold flowing from my keyboard.

Word #243 the last time was kinda suspect.