12+ I said goodbye to Twitter/X in February 2025. Leaving wasn't without regrets, because I'd made friends there, particularly among the #WritingCommunity. And I enjoyed sharing my writing and taking part in challenges on the platform. Like the #30Words30Days challenge, run during 30-day months by Danielle Baldock.
Danielle (@WritingDani on Twitter) and Sumitra (another Twitter/X expat, @pleomorphic2 on Bluesky) ran the first #30Words30Days writing challenge in April 2023. They tweeted daily prompt words in the morning, inspiring writers to write and share their 30-word stories on Twitter/X.
As I wrote in a 2023 blog post on my first #30Words30Days challenge:
I composed most of my thirty 30-word stories first thing in the morning, as the challenge became a fun and creative kick-start to my writing day. Typically, the ideas came to me quickly after reading the prompt word, and the stories were random creations. But some were inspired by topical events or memories.
Danielle continued the #30Words30Days challenges in 2024, expanding them to all 30-day months. I loved writing, sharing and blogging about my 30-word stories for April, June, September and November.
And I looked forward to writing more stories in 2025. But then I left Twitter/X.
#30Words30Days on Bluesky
Although Danielle still posts on Twitter/X, she also has a Bluesky account (@danielle-baldock). So, I reached out and asked her to run the April 2025 #30Words30Days challenge on Bluesky. Judging by Danielle's 1 April post, other expat Twitter/X writers did the same!
As she did on Twitter/X, Danielle posted her daily prompt-words in the morning, inviting the Bluesky #WritingCommunity to have "Happy Writings" and share our #30Words30Days stories.
My #30Words30Days Stories for April 2025
I've listed my thirty 30-word stories for April 2025 below in date order, with Danielle's italicised daily prompts linked to my posts on Bluesky. I used longer word variations for some prompts, for instance, switching instead of switch, but I maintained the original spelling ... except for Day 18's slide!
There's also a link to my Tall And True Microfiction Anthology, which includes April 2023's #30Words30Days stories:
1. He stares at the relentless flow of time in the mirror. More wrinkles, greyer, and watery, dull eyes. He sighs and thinks, "At least I'm standing, looking in the mirror!"
2. "You've got a spring in your step this morning," the barista says. "It's my new silicone insoles," I explain, bouncing off down the street, trying not to spill my coffee.
3. I booked an hour in a float tank. I should be relaxing, but I can't stop worrying. Did I pack the kids' lunch, lock the front door, bring my purse!?
4. I twirl in the rain in the parking lot outside the oncologist's rooms, my arms outstretched, face turned skywards. His prognosis was poor, but I intend to savour every moment!
5. I may be old, but there's still a flutter in my heart whenever I see a beautiful woman wearing her Sunday best on the promenade. Or perhaps it's my angina?
6. He swivels back and forth on his chair.
"Please stop," I ask.
"Sorry, it's the world moving," he replies.
"The world's rotating," I point out, and he spins around instead.
7. The sports car pulls out in front of me and I toot my horn. The driver flips me the finger, but drops his arm when he sees my flashing lights.
8. I'm given the job of sorting Dad's study after his funeral. I find his old car keys in a drawer. They jangle when I lift them, releasing memories and tears.
9. I watch the cormorant dive into the sea and surface with a live fish flapping in its bill. I will the fish to escape, but death is a one-sided battle.
10. Tom and I have always voted for the same party, like our parents, grandparents and probably our great-grandparents. So how do I tell him I'm switching my vote this time?
11. Lately, I can't stop my mind from wandering. "Oh, look, a cute cat video on Instagram!" But I always return to the point. "Aw, the cat's singing and dancing!" Eventually.
12. Arrr, me hardies! I be a pirate, and pillaging were me game. But after marrying me beautiful mermaid, Nora, I sold off me plunder, and retired to a desert island.
13. After 40 years, the fizz had long gone from their relationship, replaced by something stronger, companionship from shared experience. And yet, she wondered if there was something more to life!
14. My Pop was leathery and taciturn, smelled of tobacco, and watched TV in silence in the evenings, cradling a scotch. But if you asked nicely, he'd tell you a story.
15. I learned all their songs, practised the dance moves, begged Mum for black pants and shoes and to sew a special skivvy. I was going to be the polka-dot Wiggle!
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16. My mother insisted we attend church on Sundays. I remember nothing of the sermons. Only the collection bowl passed around the aisles. With all that gilded finery, I wondered why?
17. For most of his life, time had stretched far into the distance, so that he felt he was immortal. But now, lying on a hospital bed, it seemed so short.
18. A childhood memory of climbing a playground ladder that seemed to stretch to the heavens. And when I close my eyes, I still feel like I'm sliding back to earth.
19. I hated magpies. They swooped, screeched and pecked at me on my way to school. But then I found and raised an abandoned chick, and Maggie taught me their secrets.
20. The buffet tables in the business lounge overflow with a feast of food. The TVs show news of the latest famine in Africa. I feel for them, I really do.
21. I'd like to wind life back to simpler times, without poverty, famine or wars, when love was in the air, and our toughest choice was whether to eat an apple.
22. I should have told Ruby about my unfaithful night at the conference from the start. Instead, I weaved a web of lies that's grown too large and knotted to untangle.
23. The grandkids hide in the playground. I can see them. But I say nothing, and act surprised when they pounce. Who knew being a grandparent could be so much fun?
24. No one else detected the ripple in the universe. But Julian's secret power was sensitivity to micro-disturbances in the fabric of space. He bunkered down and prepared for the apocalypse.
25. Once the challenge was all-night partying, then it was juggling work and kids. Soon it became managing aches and pains. Now it's trying to remember where I left the keys!
26. I promised the grandkids they could have anything of mine after I died, but I didn't expect them to rummage through my stuff while I'm still sitting on my sofa!
27. "Loo, loo, skip to my loo, my darlin'." I smile at my granddaughter singing and skipping to the toilet, and don't have the heart to tell her the lyric's L-O-U!
28. NASA detected the lethal waves of gamma radiation heading towards Earth. The United Nations convened an emergency summit of world leaders, but no one could agree on the seating plan.
29. I felt bad about stringing him along, but I needed his backpack to get the drugs back into Australia. I felt worse when I discovered he was an undercover cop!
30. The family gathered at the club to celebrate Gran's 90th birthday. Panic ensued when we lost her. But I found Gran perched on a stool playing her favourite pokie machine.
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A Manic April
My involvement with the campaign to re-elect my local independent MP in the 2025 Australian Federal Election gathered pace during April (blog post coming!), and it became harder for me to find time for writing and podcasting. The #30Words30Days challenge was my daily creative writing outlet.
I wrote most of the stories on the day Danielle posted the prompt, but towards the end of the month, when the campaigning and pre-polling became manic, I'd catch up on several days of stories before crashing in bed for the next day's pre-dawn alarm.
On 30 April, I wrote and shared my final story with a thanks post for Danielle:
Thanks SO MUCH, Danielle Baldock, for running #30Words30Days on #Bluesky in April. I've loved composing a #30wordstory based on your daily prompts. My only regret is that April ends today!
What I didn't know because I'd disappeared down the vortex of the last days of pre-polling, and the election itself on 3 May, was that Danielle posted a bonus prompt to "soften the blow of #30Words30Days ending". And I only realised and wrote my Day 31 story while researching this blog post:
31. I misread her text message "I'm out to lunch" and responded "Hope you enjoy the restaurant". But then it's not every day NASA launches your partner on a Mars mission!
Thanks again, Danielle, for running April 2025's #30Words30Days writing challenge. I look forward to sharing another thirty (or more!) 30-word stories on Bluesky in June!
© 2025 Robert Fairhead
Thanks to Enrique for sharing the blue sky image for this blog post on Pixabay.
Robert shares his writing on Tall And True and blogs on his eponymous website, RobertFairhead.com. He also writes and narrates episodes for the Tall And True Short Reads storytelling podcast, which features his short stories, blog posts, and other writing.
Robert's book reviews and other writing have appeared in print and online media. He has published three short story collections — Both Sides of the Story (2020), Twelve Furious Months (2021) and Twelve More Furious Months (2022) —, a microfiction anthology, Tall And True Microfiction (2023), and a collection of speculative fiction, One Day in the Life of Alex's AI and Other Speculative Fiction (2024).
In addition to writing, Robert's favourite pastimes include reading, watching the Sydney Swans Aussie Rules football team with his son, and walking his dog.
He has also enjoyed a one-night stand ... as a stand-up comic.
