Welcome to my entry for the Open Novella Contest 2021! I only finished last year's novella in November, but the lovely group of authors in the Literary Lounge dragged me on the hype train and it was a lost cause from the start. I'm taking this at my own pace because I also have a thesis to write, so updates might be slow, but this will be finished eventually.

This year, I used prompt 40: "If only you knew you'd meet them, you'd have dressed a bit better. Especially since the only thing you can think of since you've seen their smile is 'oh shit'."
I will add trigger warnings here if they become necessary at some point. If someone is more familiar with any of the rep in this than me (including gay (male) culture), feel free to reach out in the comments or via DM. I love constructive feedback of all kinds, even if it's just on typos! I'm here to listen and learn. And if you like what I write, leave a comment or vote, which both makes me happy and helps other people discover this.

Lastly, I want to share some of the covers and images I got when I asked for help in my author corner in the Literary Lounge discord server. To compare, I've added my own attempts (notice my lack of design skills) at the end. Don't forget to take a look at their profiles because they all have writing skills too!

My final cover was made by the talented August, who I dedicated this chapter to. He got me on the hype train and is participating with no less than four novellas. Go check them out!

I also got several from aftershock_

These are from Mittu (-dreamsinwords):

This one is from Chris (_coffeewithhoney):

And this one by Zoe (Zoe_Blessing)

Eden (EdenY_) found these images for me (I'm just sharing them because I like them, not for any other particular reason):

And lastly my own attempts (including the very first one with the wrong title):