Illustration by Ana Hinojosa.

Illustration by Ana Hinojosa.

Because Rookie’s theme this month is Assembly, I (Stephanie) thought it would be a great time to write about fantasy—or nightmare—inventions. I’m still disappointed that we don’t have flying cars, so I would personally love to write a story about a time when we have them. Maybe there is something even more innovative that you have in mind—an invention that would change the world or make life infinitely more convenient, or that would just spark a really cool chain of events in a story. What would happen, for example, if we had a machine that could control the weather? Would that be a good thing? What if it fell into the wrong hands?

Some inventions have a negative side or are invented for truly terrible purposes. In one of my writing classes in college, we read “In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka—a short story about a machine that tortures prisoners to death by carving their sentence into their bodies. You don’t have to write something so sinister: You can stick with a delightfully cool invention, or even write a biography or profile of the person who comes up with your great invention.

Send your story, poem, comic, or the schematics for your invention (yes, please, we really want those!) along with your first name, last initial, age, and city/state to [email protected] with the subject line “Creative Prompt” by Monday, November 23 at 6 PM EST.

Your last prompt was to write a love letter, addressed to anything or anyone, including yourself. Here’s what you wrote, straight from the heart…